


Robbing the Grave

by jellybeanforest



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Bottom Yondu, Bromantic Comedy, Bullying, Canonical Child Death, Child Abuse, Gen, Growing up Ravager, Hurt/Comfort, Kraglin on the Prowl, M/M, May/December Relationship, Mentions of Past Yondex, Orphans, Past Slavery, Platonic Affection, Reconciling Canon with Fanon, References to Gay Conversion, References to Sexual Cannibalism, Slowburn Kragdu, Top Kraglin, Underage Drinking, Yondad, kid!Kraglin, kid!Peter, light homophobia, matchmaking gone wrong, no actual underage, oblivious Yondu, ravagers as family, underage pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-04-30 02:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Kraglin knows it might be wrong, but he just can’t help himself.In which Yondu is an unwitting DILF, Kraglin is counting down the years until a possible relationship with his captain becomes borderline socially-acceptable, and Peter may just about lose his damn mind now that his best friend is dead-set on banging his sort-of Dad.





	1. The New Recruit

**Author's Note:**

> I got another comedic fic of Kraglin and Peter getting matching tattoos while drunk and a Yondex fic in the works, but this idea simply wouldn’t leave me alone and jumped the finish line. This fic is mostly about the brotherly bond between Kraglin and Peter, but it is going to feature the Kragdu pairing with a large age-gap (17 years). Usually, I write Kraglin as being around 10-12 years older than Peter and Yondu being about 5-8 years older than Kraglin. In my stories, Kraglin is generally around 19 and Yondu is around 27 (at the oldest) when Peter is picked up at age 8. While that is a large age gap for a 19-year-old, Kraglin is an adult and above the age of consent. However, it’s implied in canon that Kraglin was present when they kidnap Peter (GotG1 when Kraglin says “Yeah, Quill turned out okay. It’s probably good we didn’t deliver him to his dad like we was hired to do.”), and he is not that much older than Peter (the actors that portray them are only five years apart while Rooker is literally 20 years older than Sean Gunn, and in a GotG2 deleted scene where Kraglin shows Peter how to use the Zune, Kraglin tells Peter he likes an angry lady named Alice Cooper because she sings about stuff they felt when they were kids). We know that “Ravagers don’t deal in kids,” but to make that gel with Kraglin’s likely age, I interpreted it as Ravagers don’t sell or traffic children, but they are not above having them on crew, provided they get permission from the parents/legal guardian. All that is to say, in this fic, when Peter is picked up at age 8, Kraglin is 13 while Yondu is 30, but Yondu barely registers that Kraglin exists outside of a vague awareness of him as Quill’s childhood friend and companion. Kraglin is stuck in a Stacy’s-Mom conundrum until he finally ages onto the Captain’s radar in his early twenties. Anyway, if that squicks you out, please turn back now.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tellarune Obfonteri, First Mate of the Eclector, recruits his planet-bound son into the Ravager fold.

In the shadow of glitzy skyscrapers, glittering fountains, and clean white streets gleaming bright lies a rat warren of dirty slums, where Xandar’s less-desirable citizens huddle and scrape to build a life from meager beginnings and even leaner means.

 _They’re coming_ , they had whispered over glowing candles when the lights went out.

 _They’re coming_ , they had said in the communal lavatories outside their diminutive ramshackle homes.

 _They’ve come,_ they had shouted when the first wave of bulldozers had arrived.

The notice had been posted two months prior. The residents were to be relocated to the outskirts of the city, so their community could be torn down and built anew as expensive condominiums for the upper crust desiring closer accommodations to the heart of the financial district and posh markets. Electricity and taps had already been shut off to encourage compliance with the eviction order, but still some stayed in defiance of the enemy laying siege at the border. This had always been their home, their land, and they were loathe to leave.

Presently, Tellarune Obfonteri navigates the twisting unmarked streets connecting the system of cramped squat but sturdy hodgepodge structures to the main road, like capillaries branching off an artery. Had he been a broad man, he may have had trouble passing in spots where the breadth of the road narrowed ever thinner until only a single man could pass at a time. He runs his hands across the rough hewn stone on either side, steering his way through well-worn paths by touch and memory towards the only people he cared about in this condemned place.

His woman, Brista, had always been stubborn, strong-headed and bullish and utterly perfect. Their unconventional relationship had produced a son, and when he asked her to leave with him, she refused. He left anyway. _You walk out that door, we’re through!_ She had screamed at his retreating back.

The first time he returned, she welcomed him with a punch for leaving followed by a kiss for coming back, for coming home. He disagreed. The Eclector was home for him in a way Xandar never was and never could be. He bristled at the hypocrisy of Nova policy, felt itchy and claustrophobic living in the same five mile stretch for too long. In space, he was Tellarune Obfonteri, First Mate to the feared Captain Yondu Udonta of the Ravagers. Down here, he would be nothing. For her part, Brista couldn’t abide living on the Eclector. She hated the uncertainty of having no earth under her feet and her requisite dependence on Tellarune for everything, including protection from his fellow crew. And then what would become of Kraglin? After what happened to the Ogord children… No. On Xandar, she was an independent businesswoman of her own small sweet stand and proud mother of a precocious (if troublesome) son who was meant for better things. Up there, she would be nothing. So, for twelve years, they loved and fought and broke up and fell together again, their relationship a rubber band, stretching and snapping in perpetuity between the spacer who wouldn’t stay and the woman who refused to leave.

So far, neither had budged in their position, but perhaps this time, his woman will finally come away with him.

Rounding the last corner, Tellarune mulls the pitch in his head. _You’ve already lost your home,_ he’d say. _I’ll give you many more; there are so many different worlds out there._

He stands outside the door, raking fingers over his bristly scalp out of habit, having shorn his long dark hair two days prior. Brista won’t like his new look, but she would have liked the lice much less. He palms the outside of his left pocket, ensuring he still has the gift for Kraglin: a shiny black three-eyed cat figurine from Trypt, a colony just outside Nova space. Kraglin likes cats, or maybe it was bats? Even if it was the latter, he’s not too sure if it was the animal or the weapon his son fancied, but it was definitely something along those lines. With a final steadying breath, he pulls out the primitive key from around his neck and slips it into the lock to turn it open.

It doesn’t budge.

 _Fuck_.

It didn’t happen often, but every once in a while, his woman would get it in her head to cut him from her life and change the locks while he was away. It didn’t last long. Usually.

Tellarune pounds on the door. “Brista! It’s me! Brista, open the door!”

When that fails to produce any response, he pleads, “C’mon baby, don’t be like that. I can make ya feel real good, be real sweet to ya. Just open the door an’ I won’t have ta describe the details where all yer neighbors can hear.”

He’s gratified to hear the click of the deadbolt giving way, but when the door opens, it’s only his son standing before him.

“Go away,” Kraglin says flatly. He tries to close the door in his father’s face, leaning into it with his full weight, but Tellarune catches it before it shuts and lodges himself in the threshold to look beyond the boy into the empty one-room home.

“Where’s yer mama?”

“She’s… gone.” Kraglin looks lost for a moment, but when it passes, he states dully, “Traffic accident ‘bout six weeks back, so you don’t have’ta come ‘round no more, Tellarune.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Kraglin shrugs but doesn’t respond. Tellarune examines him in silence. The boy had always been a touch scrawny, but he didn’t remember him looking quite so waiflike and dirty, his demeanor guarded, almost cagey. Kraglin fidgets under Tellarune’s appraising eye in the ensuing silence.

“Hey… how ‘bout you come with me?” Tellarune offers tentatively, stepping forward to lay a reassuring hand on his back.

“Mama wouldn’t like it. She says it’s not safe,” Kraglin answers, right fist clenched. He concentrates on a dark stain on the concrete floor, worrying it with the worn toe of his boot, careful not to meet his father’s gaze. That had always been his mother’s mistake, staring into those apologetic green eyes.

“It’s not safe to stay, neither. ‘Sides, I’m sure yer mama would want us to stick together now that she’s… Well, we can git ya out’a here, yeah? See the stars together. You an’ me, son.”

Kraglin wants to tell his father to fuck off and never return, like his mama used to, and then never accept him back into his life, like she failed to do. But–

His hand is warm and heavy between Kraglin’s thin shoulders. When was the last time he had been warm?

Kraglin sighs in resignation. “Alright.”

Tellarune waits as Kraglin grabs his go-bag from under the family bed he shared with his mother as well as some personal momentos: a set of photographs, a single gold earring that had lost its match some time long ago, the scarf his mother had knitted for him two winters prior when his last one wore thin. When he reaches for the long knife she used for gutting river eels, his father tells him, “Yer not goin’ ta need that where we’re goin’. It’s all blasters an’ plasma cannons up there. I’ll teach ya to shoot.”

Kraglin fixes his father with a hard stare, before sheathing the knife in a bit of cloth and stowing it away in his bag, daring him to comment further. Tellarune quietly notes that his son neglected to take any of the knickknacks he had brought him over the years during his infrequent visits. He supposes he deserves that.

Once finished, Kraglin shoulders the pack and follows Tellarune out. He pauses at the threshold, and with a last lingering glance at his home and touch of the door frame to commit it to memory, he closes and locks the door.

 

* * *

 

“Obfonteri, whatchu got there?” Yondu calls out to his first mate when the man approaches his M-ship with a young boy in tow.

“New recruit,” Tellarune answers, pushing Kraglin up front as an introduction.

Yondu is skeptical. “Seems a bit on the short side.”

“He’s my son. His mother’s dead,” he says thickly. _He’s got nowhere else to go_ is what he doesn’t say.

Yondu considers the child, sallow and thin, wrapped in layers of threadbare clothes stained grey-brown under an unhealthy layer of grime. “Don’t take no freeloaders. Boy’s gotta earn his keep.”

Kraglin’s face scrunches at the implied insult. “Oi! I ain’t no charity case. I can work.”

His father raps him lightly on the side of his head, drawing Kraglin’s attention as he rubs the heel of his hand against his stinging temple. Frowning, Tellarune incrementally shakes his head in disapproval. _No talking back to Cap’n._ Kraglin crosses his arms, but drops his rebellious gaze in deference to the man who had yet to decide his fate.

“…Sir,” Kraglin appends. He almost manages to sound apologetic. 

“You got a mouth on ya, kid.” Yondu says, crouching down to size up the boy. “Yer a runty li’l bugger. Skinny like a pipe-cleaner. Eclector could do with a good duct cleanin’, I reckon. Perhaps clear up Horuz’s asthma so her highness’ll stop bitchin’ ‘bout ‘sub-standard livin’ conditions’ when he thinks I can’t hear.”

Yondu prods the boy in his bony shoulder, “Gotta name, son?”

“Kraglin. Kraglin Obfonteri.”

“Okay Obfonteri. I guess you’ll do. Welcome aboard the Eclector. Don’t fuck up,” Yondu says, drawing up to his full height.

Tellarune beats his chest twice to his Captain in respect and gratitude. Kraglin imitates him. He places a hand on Kraglin’s shoulder to lead him away as they turn to board the awaiting M-ship.

“And Obfonteri,” Yondu adds.

The boy and his father both turn in expectation.

Scowling, Yondu points at Tellarune to clarify. “Obfonteri, take Kraglin-was-it to the Quartermaster ta git ‘im outfitted in some reds. Don’t got his size, but pretty sure he can scrape together somethin’ from the bin.”

As Tellarune pilots his M-ship to rendezvous with the Eclector, Kraglin watches his quickly-receding homeworld shrink in the distance. He closes one eye and covers the entirety of Xandar, everything he's ever known, with his palm pressed against glass, but instead of making him feel like a titan, he feels small, insignificant in scale.  

“Yer a spacer now, jus’ like me.”

Kraglin turns towards his father, his tongue poised to argue, but when he catches sight of the black expanse ahead dotted with thousands of stars previously-hidden from the surface of Xandar behind a layer of smog and light pollution, his mouth drops in awe.

“Yeah, yer goin’ ta like it out here, son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin’s old neighborhood is inspired by the concept of nail houses and visiting my long-term ex-boyfriend’s father who lived in one of the few remaining hutong neighborhoods in old Beijing when the government was planning to demolish them to make way for modern condominiums about seven years ago. His home was a one-room windowless concrete cinderblock with no running water, no toilets save a shared one for the entire neighborhood, and he cooked on a hotplate in the entryway. To get to his house, we had to walk in single file down a narrow winding unmarked road flanked on each side by many similar houses. Yet, he didn’t want to move, losing prime real estate in the city center.


	2. Friends Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu soon finds a job for the young Kraglin as a small sneak and de facto companion to the children he collects for Ego.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is going to include a lot of canon-compliant original characters (Ego’s children), but don’t worry, they aren’t sticking around long for canon reasons.

Duct cleaning is a potentially-dangerous, yet tedious, affair. Kraglin straps on his makeshift utility belt holstering a screwdriver, microfiber cloths, and the bristly end of a high-powered vac with the long hose trailing after him, tethering him to the vent opening from whence he came. He then dons a headlight and the dust mask his father insisted he wear, before unscrewing the wall register and climbing inside.

The Eclector had been assembled piecemeal, whole segments reconfigured and grafted to the initial base long after it first launched. As such, while all ventilation was controlled from the bridge, there wasn’t a single pre-planned centralized duct system running through the entire ship. Rather, each section retained the original web of ducts from when it had been an independent craft; each local system idiosyncratic to its own distinctive segment with the occasional DIY jointure between two adjacent pieces. This made for dangerous, somewhat unpredictable terrain, where sudden turns, sharp drops, and random narrowing were common and had to be carefully crossed. Unfortunately, individual systems had to be traversed separately, unique uncharted dangers lying in the dark depths.

Kraglin spends his days navigating ancient ventilation ducts, sucking up decades of dust as he goes. The sweat clings to his forehead, forming a grey paste with the filth, wetting his hair and making the seal of the mask cling uncomfortably tight against his lower face. One wrong step and he’ll likely die falling down ten stories of vertical shaft or perhaps get sucked into a fan if one of the other Ravagers accidentally leans on a control panel, activating the damn thing, but at least Tellarune will find solace in the fact that his son’s lungs were perfectly pink and healthy to the end, Kraglin thinks bitterly, readjusting the mask.

During sleep shift, he beds down with his father and the other crew. _Night, Tellarune_ , he had said the first time. _Don’t call me that_ , his father had answered, so now, Kraglin doesn’t say anything at all come bedtime. Tellarune sometimes wishes he’d kept mum, but he doesn’t push his son for more affection than he’s willing to give.

And so it is that Kraglin slips into a routine of endless cleaning during days and stiff nights spent lying next to the man he refuses to call father. It’s a tolerable, if boring, existence… until the Eclector receives a job that requires Kraglin’s unique skill set.

Captain and First Mate pore over a handheld projection of Senator Prost’s mansion during evening mess.

“Ya say this is the only access point right ‘ere?” Yondu jabs the hologram with a chipped claw.

“Yeah, that’s what our source says,” Tellarune answers, examining the narrow rooftop ingress before touching on various points of the map. “The doors an’ windows are heavily guarded, but if we can git in there, avoid the guards ‘ere an’ ‘ere, we can sneak into the bedroom, grab the ring, and be out in 20 minutes ‘fore shift change.”

“It’s a tight fit. No way any o’ our men can squeeze through.” Yondu surveys the crew. His Ravagers ran stocky with a few like Gef and Taserface reaching truly impressive girths. Even the more-svelte members of his crew were too bulky to take on this job.  

“It would take someone freakishly flexible or small or…” Yondu’s gaze falls on Kraglin eating in the corner of mess hall. “Say Obfonteri, yer boy over there, Ragland right? How wide do ya reckon he is ‘cross the shoulders?”

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, Tellarune stands on the roof with Tullk. He glances at his chronometer. It’s been fifteen minutes since Kraglin went in, and he had yet to resurface. His gut twists with what is either worry or indigestion. He knew two weeks hadn’t been enough time to train the boy in the ways of subterfuge and grand larceny. Brista had been an honest woman, and she had raised her son to be the same.

“The lad’s fine. We would’a ‘eard the alarms if he was caugh’,” Tullk whispers his assurances.

“He’s too green fer a solo mission.” Tellarune checks the time yet again. “He’s goin’ ta git nabbed wearin’ the flame, an’ then it’s straight to the Kyln. Nova don’t fuck ‘round when it comes ta organized cri–“

Just then, Kraglin pops a hand out the vent. His father momentarily stunned into inaction, Tullk grasps the boy’s outstretched arm and pulls him out of the narrow entrance.

“Ye go’ the package?” Tullk asks, placing him on the roof. Kraglin dusts himself off a bit before patting his sides.

“Yeah, right ‘ere,” he takes the ring from his pocket. He looks up at his father, who is still regarding him with confusion.

“What? Ya think this is my first time breakin’ an’ enterin’ fer profit?” Kraglin asks. Tullk starts to chuckle quietly.

“Yer mama know ‘bout yer… extracurriculars?” Tellarune finally manages.

“Why? Ya goin’a tell ‘er on me? Didn’t figure you fer a snitch.” Kraglin doesn’t quite meet his father’s eyes as he heads back towards the rope leading down to the trellis.

“Tha’s yer boy, Rue.” Tullk lightly thumps his friend on the back.

 

* * *

 

After the success of the Prost heist, Cap’n entrusts Kraglin with additional niche jobs intended for thieves of smaller stature, finding his size invaluable in a tight spot. However, when Yondu receives an extremely lucrative contract from the Celestial Ego to collect his wayward children, it’s Kraglin’s age that proves indispensible.

“Kraglin, this ‘ere is Zed,” Yondu introduces a scaly twelve-year-old Easik boy to Kraglin. “Do whatever it is you kids do ta pass the time ‘til we can deliver ‘im to his daddy. I don’t give a shit what; just stay out’a my way.”

When he leaves, Kraglin asks, “So, what do ya want’a do?”

Zed doesn’t answer, at least not with words. Instead, he kicks Kraglin in the groin and takes off running in the opposite direction, towards the M-ship docks. Thankful for his jumpsuit’s sewn-in cup, Kraglin recovers quickly and tackles him, holding down his squirming peer.

“Get off’a me!” Zed screams, “I just want to go home!”

“We’re takin’ ya home, idjit!”

“No, you took me away from home, stupid!”

It was not an auspicious start.

“This food sucks,” Zed complains, lifting a spoon of mystery glue then tilting it to watch the viscous stew gloop off and down.

Kraglin sticks his spoon in his mouth. “It’s not that bad, Zeddy. Yer just spoiled.”

Zed flings a spoonful in Kraglin’s direction. It lands on his forehead then slides down his large nose as Zeddy laughs. Kraglin knows he can’t damage the other boy directly without drawing Cap’n’s ire, so he draws one finger through the goo on his face and sticks it directly into Zeddy’s mouth.

The boy immediately recoils, sputtering and hacking as if poisoned. “When was the last time you washed your hands?”

“Oh, don’t be so prissy. It hasn’ been more’n a week.”

Nor was it an auspicious middle.

“Which one o’ you did it?” Yondu’s icy tone shrivels Kraglin’s insides. He and Zeddy had gotten into another ugly spat, and he had thrown a wrench at the other boy, who ducked to his relief. However, the errant tool had hit a control panel instead, nearly depressurizing Section 4C and killing everyone in the vicinity. Now, Kraglin and Zeddy stood a foot apart, facing down the former’s imminent death.

To Kraglin’s surprise, Zeddy takes the fall. “It was me. I’m really really sorry, Mr. Captain, sir.”

Yondu glares at him like he wants to whistle, but he knows doing so would severely decrease his current pay-out and future prospects. Instead, both Zeddy and Kraglin are sent to the brig: Zeddy for destroying property and almost murdering them all and Kraglin for failing to stop him.

“Why did ya say it was you?” Kraglin asks as they sit back-to-back in separate cages.

“Captain isn’t going to kill me. I’m too valuable to him alive,” Zeddy replies, “You? You’re expendable. I doubt he’d hesitate, and then who would I hang out with for the next however-long-it-takes to get to my dad.”

He thinks about it further and adds, “Plus, I’m no snitch.”

Kraglin reckons that’s as good a reason as any.

“So, the First Mate… he’s your dad?” Zed’s voice is unsure. Kraglin never calls the man that, which seems to displease him.

“Yeah, Tellarune is my old man,” Kraglin confirms. He kicks out his legs, scuffing the soles of his boots.

“Did you meet him after your mom died, too?”

“No, but he was kind’a in-an’-out. Showed up every few months an’ tried to play dad fer a bit,” Kraglin responds bitterly, “Never stuck ‘round long ‘nough to really make a go of it ‘til after.”

“You’re lucky. At least your dad made an effort. I’ve never even met Ego, and then he sends you guys to pick me up? Didn’t even bother to come in person,” Zeddy sounds defeated. “Prick.”

Later, when Tellarune springs them from the brig, he angrily lectures Kraglin on the importance of following orders and preventing his charge from committing accidental mass manslaughter.

“Yeah, yeah, I know… Pops,” Kraglin says.

It’s enough to make Tellarune pause his tirade. He doesn’t point out the change, feeling it too fragile to test, but he does fondly knuckle his son’s head to Kraglin’s protests.

When the day comes for Zed to be delivered to Ego, he and Kraglin stand in the docking bay to say their goodbyes.

“Hold out your hand; I got you something,” Zeddy tells him.

Kraglin obeys, but Zeddy grabs his arm with both hands, quickly twisting in opposite directions.

“Ow! Motherfucker!” Kraglin withdraws his arm, tender blue bands striping the limb, but before he can retaliate, Zeddy is off running towards the M-ship.

“Next time, you can return the favor!” He calls over his shoulder as he reaches Yondu.

Kraglin tries to go after him, but his father grabs him around his middle, stopping his forward progress. “Lemme go! That asshole has it comin’!”

That night, Kraglin figures that the whole affair had been Zeddy’s way of ensuring he’d visit some day. It doesn’t stop Kraglin from plotting his revenge. Unfortunately, when he asks his father if he can go with the next child to Ego, he’s denied. It seems Ego strictly controls access to his planet, and Kraglin is not on the list.

_Prick._

 

* * *

 

The next child, Tyjak, is a Kronan boy, whose tall stout stone body belied his young age of seven. He’s always wanted to meet his father, and views the voyage to do so as a grand adventure.

Kraglin makes the mistake of playing tag with the child, and one enthusiastic body slam later, Kraglin spends the next two weeks in med bay with cracked ribs. To his credit, Tyjak is very sorry, staying by his bedside to play checkers with Kraglin using colored cotton balls instead of plastic tokens, to prevent further damage to his clearly-extremely-fragile playmate.

Kraglin is discharged from care, and they stick to building pillow forts. Climbing inside, they pretend to be co-Kings of a feudal society whose major exports are friendship (at Tyjak’s insistence) and knives (at Kraglin’s).

When the boy is delivered to his father a week later, Kraglin claims relief that he no longer has to play such childish games, but when Tellarune discovers a stash of colored cotton balls in his footlocker, Kraglin grumbles about invasions of privacy as he changes the combination.

 

* * *

 

Ceras and Wheft are twin five-year-old Krylorian girls. When they play hide-and-seek with Kraglin, they choose to hide together. Sometimes, they giggle when he gets close, but he chooses not to hear, opting to gain another ten minutes of peace rather than find them too quickly.

Tiring of their game, the twins find the flowers stored in stasis for officer funerals and braid them together to create crowns. It nearly ends in a real funeral when Yondu almost whistles Kraglin through after finding the two of them napping, lying still on the floor, funerary flowers in their hair.

“Don’t fuckin’ scare Kraglin like that!” Cap’n had shouted after Wheft stirred at his sharp whistle, and the arrow veered right, clipping the boy’s ear. “I thought we’d lost a paycheck.”

Kraglin, ghostly white, had held his ear to staunch the flow of blood.

“Right… right, the paycheck,” he had stammered.

Delivery day arrives, and the twins cling to Kraglin’s legs, one on each, as he tries to shuffle them towards Yondu’s M-ship.

“C’mon girls, Cap’n says it’s nice down there, real purty with all the colors an’ waterfalls an’ big open fields an’ such,” Kraglin attempts to reason with them. It isn’t very effective.

“Come with us, Kraggle!” Ceras pleads.

“Yeah! I dun wanna leave you!” Wheft cries.

“I’m sure ya’ll be fine. Zeddy and Ty will look after ya. There’s two o’ them, two o’ you.” _They won’t be outnumbered_ … Kraglin thinks.

Truth told, Kraglin longed to visit the planet’s surface and see his friends again, bypassing his father after the first refusal and appealing to Captain directly. However, Yondu had simply said Ego specified only he be present for the drop off. _Them kids are fine_ , Cap’n assured him. _They’re playin’ in their daddy’s castle or runnin’ ‘cross entire fields of flowers_. It made Kraglin a little sad knowing his new friends had forgotten him so quickly, but that just meant they were happy in their new lives and didn’t feel nostalgic for the past. Even Zeddy must have re-evaluated his feelings towards Ego.

It must be nice having such a caring father who saw to all their needs and wanted them desperately, enough to pay for their journey home.

 

* * *

 

Yondu steers clear of the next child, a blue 15-year-old Kree youth named Roh-Korr. Handing him over to Kraglin’s watchful eye, his mouth is a thin line and the large vein in his neck pulses in irritation. Whereas Cap’n would occasionally check in on the Eclector’s other temporary wards, Kraglin doesn’t see him much at all.

“I don’t think Cap’n much likes ya,” Kraglin tells Roh-Korr. “What’d ya do to piss ‘im off?”

“Nothing, I swear!” The other boy protests then confides, “I think he’s just a jerkwad.”

“Prob’ly,” Kraglin concedes. “Hey, so, ya want’a play hide-an’-seek or tag? That’s what yer brothers an’ sisters liked ta do.”

“Nah, those are baby games. We’re not babies. Let’s play poker.”

“I ain’t got no money fer poker.”

“Me neither, but I got some ideas for what we can wager.”

 

* * *

 

“Brahl, you seen Kraglin and that Kree kid?” Tellarune asks his reptilian compatriot.

“They asked ta borrow some cards. Check the break room.” Brahl responds.

“Borrow?”

“Yeah, I know. Yer kid’s weird.”

Tellarune can’t find them in the main break room, so he heads toward the smaller closets Kraglin favored when he was trying to avoid the barber’s chair during delousing. The scene that greeted him in the third closet he opened was… unexpected.

Kraglin had removed his boots and gloves, which rested in a neat pile next to Roh-Korr, but Roh-Korr had lost almost all his clothes and was about to drop his pants to join the growing pile next to Kraglin. A stack of cards and two hands lay in the middle. Both boys froze, turning towards the intrusion.

“Um… it ain’t what it looks like?” Kraglin tries.

Later, Tellarune and Kraglin sit in silence after the former sent Roh-Korr to get some poker lessons from Tullk on how to cheat more effectively.

“So…” Tellarune starts.

“We was jus’ playin’ an’ we don’t have no chips to keep score,” Kraglin tells him. “We’re both boys, anyway. I’ve seen way more in the showers.”

It’s a version of the truth Tellarune vastly prefers.

“…Okay.” Tellarune feels like he should probably say something more substantial, but before he does, Kraglin changes the subject.

“Hey Pops… Why don’t Cap’n like Roh-Korr?”

Relief washes over Tellarune.

“’Cause he’s Kree, an’ Cap’n don’t like Kree.” Yondu’s virulent racism is a much more comfortable topic than his son’s possible burgeoning sexuality.

Kraglin is more confused than ever. “But ain’t Cap’n Kree?”

Tellarune knocks him against the side of his head, “Cap’n ain’t Kree, an’ best he never hear ya say that else he’ll whistle, ya hear? The Kree did ‘im real wrong way back, an’ that’s all ya need to know.”

Kraglin rubs his head against the light smack, wondering how many other species came in tantalizing shades of blue.

He thinks Cap’n must really hate having Roh-Korr on his ship because they make it to the Planet Ego in less than a week, pushing the Eclector’s speed to maximum and making as many jumps as safely possible. In preparation for delivery, Cap’n waits in his M-ship’s cockpit. He doesn’t look at Roh-Korr, doesn’t give him a reassuring pat on the back as he is loaded inside. In fact, when Cap’n returns, his mood remains sour for days afterwards as he tries to sanitize his M-ship for the first time in Kraglin’s memory.

Still, Kraglin wishes Roh-Korr had stayed, just a little longer.

 

* * *

 

The Eclector’s next job is Remy, a bald yellow-skinned Aakon girl around Kraglin’s age. Due to the farther distance between her home world and the planet Ego, she stays a bit longer than the others, so when they exhaust all their childish games, she and Kraglin stage small heists together. If the crew notices the disappearance of their smaller possessions, they wisely say nothing, choosing to lose the odd trinket or ration bar rather than incur the Captain’s wrath or that of his First Mate.

“How did you get to be so awesome at this?” Remy asks him after they successfully pilfer Gef’s hoard of sweets.

Kraglin considers telling her the truth: that he’d always been a bit of a petty shoplifter, but after his mother’s sudden death… it had been a choice between thievery and prostitution, and he supposes he never was one for honest work, so…

“Maybe it’s in my blood,” Kraglin lies instead.

“It’s in my blood, too.”

“Thievin’?”

“Being awesome,” Remy blows a bubble with her stolen gum, popping it loudly when it stretches too thin.

“Yeah, I guess it’s purty cool bein’ the daughter o’ a Celestial.”

“Who said anything about my dad? My mom made cutlery, and she could silversmith with the best of them… could make a knife to slice the wings off a mitre gnat without squashing it,” Remy says. She sniffs at the memory, eyes brimming on the verge of tears. “Pretty awesome, right?”

“Yeah… she sounds legit.”

They sit in silence, then: “Tell me again about all my brothers and sisters, Kraglin?”

A month later, the Eclector enters the orbit of the Planet Ego, and Remy and Kraglin say their goodbyes outside the Captain’s M-ship. As per usual, Ego requested a minimal landing party: just Yondu and his child.

“I’ll insist that you come along to the surface next time,” Remy rocks back and forth, heel to toe, as she locks eyes with Kraglin. “You’ll visit me, right? If I can convince Dad to ask for you special?”

Kraglin scratches the back of his head. “Yeah sure, I’d love ta see everyone again… hell, even Zeddy. I’ve grown since last I saw him; bet I’m taller now. Like to shove that in his stupid face. Maybe use his head as an arm rest. Ty will laugh.”

Remy giggles, a high fluttery sound that makes Kraglin smile in turn.

“Oh! I got something for you. Close your eyes.” She leans forward, smiling so wide her eyes crinkle.

“Yer not goin’ ta kick me in the balls an’ jump on Cap’n’s M-ship ‘fore I can catch you, are ya?” Kraglin asks suspiciously, crossing his arms, his posture slumped.

“What? No!” Remy wonders, not for the first time, what behavior she’ll encounter when she meets her siblings. Kraglin looks behind her anyway, calculating the distance between them and the M-ship. His legs are longer. He could overtake her. Probably.

“I swear, you pull anythin’ an’ I won’t be ‘sponsible fer my actions,” he warns.

“Just close your eyes, dumbass.”

When Kraglin reluctantly obeys, she stands on tip toes and lightly, fleetingly grazes her lips against his. His eyes shoot open at the brief contact as he steps back, hands over his mouth and blushing deep blue. From behind him, Tullk wolf-whistles then breaks out into loud snickering, elbowing Tellarune, who remains silent.

“There. Now you have something to hold over Zeddy’s head even if he is still taller than you.” She says with a coquettish smile. “You’ll visit, yeah?” She doesn’t wait for Kraglin’s answer, turning and walking resolutely towards Yondu, who is trying to contain his own laughter at the turn of events.

When he finally recovers, Kraglin calls out, “I guess I’ll see ya ‘round, Rem!”

Remy reaches Yondu, who places a hand on her back to lead her into the ship that will deliver her to her father, to Ego. She turns and shouts back, “I’ll hold you to that!” Facing Kraglin, she waves, smiling bright, as the boarding dock closes.

 

* * *

 

Tullk had playfully ruffled his hair, teasing him about his “li’l girlfrien’” during evening mess. _She’s just a friend_ , Kraglin had insisted, but it fell on deaf ears. _So, ‘member lad, when yer tryin’ ta git some alone time with the wee lass, her daddy is the plane’. He’s e’ewhere, so wha’ ye do is ye take ‘er in yer ship ta see the stars an’ that’s where ye make yer move._ Tullk had illustrated his instructions with obscene hand gestures that left the boy flustered and protesting.

To Kraglin’s further horror, other crewmembers had chimed in with their own stories of first times and tips for avoiding shotgun-wielding daddies, unless he wanted to end up like poor Vorker. Taserface in particular had been surprisingly prolific in his day before the accident, after which he decided to accept his extensive scarring and rebrand himself with the rather-ridiculous moniker to recapture some of his former glory.

In contrast, Tellarune had been quiet since Remy’s departure, his expression contemplative.

“Some advice, son?” Tellarune says later when they are alone, ignoring Kraglin’s rolled eyes. He’s had enough ‘advice’ for today. “Forgit the girl; there ain’t nothin’ fer ya there but heartache.”

Kraglin hadn’t liked Rem in that way, but he’s immediately defensive. “Why? I ain’t good enough fer her ‘cause her daddy’s a Celestial an’ I’mma no-good Ravager?”

“That ain’t it, Kraglin. I don’t give a flyin’ fuck who her daddy is but don’t git involved with a planetbound girl. Causes nothin’ but problems, and that girl… she ain’t never goin’a be a spacer. Fuck, her daddy’s a planet. You don’t get much more planetbound than that.”

“So yer sayin’ you should’a never been with my mama. I knew ya never wanted me, but hell, I thought least ya loved her.”

No sooner do the words leave his mouth then Tellarune grabs Kraglin roughly by the scruff of his collar, raising him high enough to lift his toes off the floor. Kraglin grasps his father’s arms to steady himself, trying to pull away, but Tellarune brings his face close to look him straight in the eye.

“I did want chu, an’ I loved yer mama. Wouldn’t’a stuck ‘round long as I did if I hadn’t. ‘Sides, what do you know ‘bout love? Yer what? Eleven? You don’t love Rem, least not yet, an’ if yer smart, you’ll find someone else while ya can, another spacer like you.”

Kraglin glowers at him, quietly defiant. “Thirteen,” he says, steel in his voice.

“What.”

“I’m thirteen, Tellarune.”

 “…Don’t call me that.” He glares at the boy, lowering him down to release him soft and deliberate. When Kraglin backs away to retreat into his work, Tellarune closes his eyes and rubs the wrinkles from his forehead, before sucking in a breath and taking a sudden wild swing at the nearest wall.

He hisses, cradling his busted hand.

“Dammit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if this is universal, but I find that uninvolved fathers (even well-meaning ones) tend to underestimate their children’s ages


	3. Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When their clandestine operations are discovered, Yondu and his crew are exiled from the 99 Ravager Clans, and the last child, Peter Quill, becomes an annoying, rather permanent fixture in Kraglin’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this chapter was much longer, so I split it into two. That seems to be happening a lot lately, so I just upped the chapter count to 10, especially since Chapter 8 is looking implausibly long. 
> 
> Also, for those not in the know, Phil Simms is the NY Giants Quarterback famous for the phrase “I’m going to Disneyland” after winning the Super Bowl, which was used as an advertising slogan starting in 1987.

Even as he assured Kraglin his friends were frolicking across expansive meadows on Planet Ego, Yondu wondered. No matter how many children he delivered, he never saw hide nor hair of them ever again on subsequent visits, and the planet remained as still and silent as ever. It was unsettling to step upon those eerily-quiet plains without so much as a cicada to welcome him with the hum of life, and Yondu never desired to linger long after their transaction was complete, not that Ego would invite him to do so. Sure, there had been whispers of sentient planets that consumed smaller life forms in the dark outer rim of known space, but Yondu discounted them as silly rumors amongst spacefarers, a notoriously superstitious lot. His client was a stuck-up jackass, but Yondu hadn’t figured him as one for familial cannibalism.

Then, Stakar Ogord calls.

Yondu answers his summons.

By the time he returns, swearing and spitting mad, the men already know. For the crime of trafficking leading to the children’s untimely demise, they have all been banished: both Captain Yondu Udonta and his complicit crew.

Kraglin vacillates between numb helplessness and white hot rage.

Zeddy, Ty, Ceras and Wheft, Roh-Korr, and Rem… all of them are dead, had been murdered almost immediately upon delivery. In his grief, Kraglin had appealed to his father. _We can’t stay,_ he pleaded shortly after the first wave of desertions, but Tellarune had refused to even consider abandoning the Eclector and her disgraced captain. _We ain’t runnin’. Cap’n wouldn’t ditch us._

Despite everything, his father still stood by that damnable blue bastard.

“If we don’t leave, I’ll kill ‘im myself,” Kraglin angrily declared.

Tellarune had struck him then. Enraged, Kraglin had returned volley, aiming to hurt him as much as he had been hurt. How could his father defend the monster he followed, the one who might as well have held the knife to his friends’ collective throats? _How could he?_ Despite everything that had happened, Tellarune still chose Yondu and his Ravager clan over the Code, over his own salvation, over Kraglin himself.

Unfortunately for the youth, his opponent had weight, strength, and experience on his side.

“I git that yer hurtin’, Kraglin, but that’s mutiny-talk, an’ I won’t suffer to hear it,” his father says when he slams him against the hull of the Eclector, physically subduing the boy and causing more than a few bruises along the way.

“Fuck you, Tellarune,” Kraglin responds through ragged breaths.  

Tellarune releases his hold and cuffs his son on the back of the head, “How many times do I have to tell ya not ta call me that?”

Absent his father’s support, Kraglin reckons he is alone in this endeavor, but that’s okay by him. After all, it’s not like it was the first time.

 

* * *

 

“Did you know?”

Having gained access to Captain’s Quarters by counterfeiting Tellarune’s palm print impression, Kraglin stands in the open doorway, holding his mother’s knife. His shaky hand sweats, grasped around the worn leather hilt, and his throat feels sandpaper-rough.

Tired and worn, Cap’n looks at him from his chair across the room, “Did I know what? That he was goin’ to kill his own kin?”

“Yeah.”

“And what if I did? Goin’ ta avenge yer li’l girlfriend an’ all yer friends? Ask yerself, boy… Are ya fast ‘nough to stick that knife in me ‘fore I can whistle? Don’t think you’d make it,” he drawls, cheek languidly propped up on curled fingers.

“Prob’ly not,” Kraglin answers truthfully, but still he doesn’t back down.

Yondu considers lying and seeing what would give way first in the aftermath – his guilt or his survival instinct – but he doesn’t feel like murdering yet another child, much less Obfonteri’s son.

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Would you ‘ave done it if ya did?” The boy presses further.

Yondu stares at him. He’s a persistent child, this Kraglin. His first mate hadn’t yet beat the foolhardiness out of him, a clear sign of poor parenting. If Yondu _ever_ procreated, his child would be better behaved, or at the very least, have the sense to not ask suicidal questions. His query didn’t even deserve a response, lest it encourage the boy, yet–

“Prob’ly not,” he replies.

Kraglin is silent for a long moment, his blade flashing bright by virtue of his tremorous grip. Yondu ponders whether he should whistle his knife-hand through, both to disarm the boy and teach him a valuable lesson his father failed to pass on: It’s either piss or get off the pot. Losing patience, he purses his lips in pre-whistle, but Kraglin is already shifting his stance.

“… Alright.” he says, sheathing the knife.

Kraglin hasn’t forgiven Cap’n, per se, but he isn’t about to murder him in the near future, and he supposes Yondu hadn’t whistled for that admittedly-rash display of treacherous insubordination. In hindsight, it may not have been Kraglin’s finest hour, but he managed to survive Cap’n’s notorious temper with Tellarune none the wiser about his lapse in judgment.

Kraglin believes he and Cap’n have come to an understanding, an uneasy truce.

…Which is why he feels so betrayed when Yondu accepts another assignment from Ego to pick up yet another doomed child: little Peter Quill of Terra.

Kraglin should have killed the fucker when he had the chance.

 

* * *

 

Tullk drags a screaming Peter Quill from his M-ship through the Eclector’s docking bay to the jeers of the rowdy crew. When he presents his quarry to Yondu, Cap’n had taken one look at the boy’s bruised face and chewed out the other man for ‘damagin’ the goods.’

“He was already like tha’ when I picked ‘im up, Cap’n,” Tullk protests, tightly gripping the boy’s arm to prevent him from fleeing. Peter pulls hard enough to nearly dislocate his shoulder before Yondu huffs in frustration and lifts him up and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Peter flails about, beating Cap’n’s back with tiny fists and making a credible effort to knee his abductor in the chin.

“He’s got fight in ‘im,” Cap’n observes, almost approvingly.

“Ye could say tha’,” Tullk shrugs, “Wan’ I should lock ‘im in the brig ‘til delivery? He ain’ go’ no volume control, an’ I’m o’ the mind tha’ Terrans only speak in shrieks an’ howls.”

“Oof!” Yondu makes a face when Peter’s wild thrashing manages to land two hard blows to his midsection. “Quit it, ya li'l cocksucker!” He readjusts his free arm to hold down the back of Peter’s legs, while still keeping a firm grip on the portion of torso folding over his shoulder with the other.

“Naw, I got other plans fer this ‘un,” Yondu replies, as Peter attempts to wriggle out of his grasp.

To the crew, he shouts, “Listen up, boys! We’re keepin’ the kid!”

The men grumble at the declaration, but Horuz is the only one with the courage (or lack of self-preservation) to voice what they are all thinking: “But Cap’n, what’re we goin’a do with ‘im? He’s worth more to us delivered than as crew.”

Yondu had anticipated resistance, so he smoothly transitions into his well-practiced speech, appealing to his crew’s spiteful nature. “You want’a take orders from the man what crossed us, like we was some kicked dog ready to do its master’s biddin’? Fuck no! Not fer all the units in the Nova Empire. Ego fucked us over, an’ we’re goin’a fuck ‘im right back! He wants the brat? Well tough shit.”

Yondu grimaces as Peter takes the opportunity to grab the back of his captor’s pants through his long coat and pull, giving him a massive wedgie. He shakes the boy loose and cuffs him on the back of the head as punishment. Peter wails ever louder, cradling the injury and carrying on like Yondu is fixing to bludgeon him to death. The crew looks unconvinced and largely unimpressed with their new addition. Yondu internally curses Quill’s poor timing. Can’t the boy sense that he’s trying to save his ungrateful ass?

Yondu continues, “Kraglin’s gettin’ full-grown an’ soon won’t be able to pull the same jobs. This kid? Look at ‘im. He’s skinny. He can fit into places we can’t. Good fer thievin’. He’s young, too; he’ll learn right quick, an’ if he don’t, I hear tell Terrans are good eatin’.”

The crew murmur and chuckle in tenuous agreement. No way Cap’n has the patience to deal with that disruptive little scrapper and his obnoxious screeching. Witnessing how Quill comports himself, the general consensus is that it won’t be long before they are all treated to a taste of tender Terran stew. Smart money was on a week, two tops.

Kraglin views the proceedings with faint dread. This can only mean one thing.

Spotting the youth in the crowd, Yondu orders, “Kraglin, show Quill ‘ere the ropes; teach ‘im the in’s an’ out’s of thievin’. Consider this a promotion. Yer no longer bottom rung.”

Kraglin barely musters a curt nod. He has no choice but to acquiesce. To do otherwise in so public a forum would not only embarrass his father (a tempting proposition), but it may also prove potentially fatal. Looking at his new charge’s face, red with rage and fear, Kraglin steels himself for the mission ahead. This new Quill kid is only temporary, an orloni meant for the f’saki’s gullet, not a pet. Cap’n will soon tire of the boy’s blatant misbehavior, and he will go the way of so many of his friends.

He simply can’t afford to get attached. Not this time.

 

* * *

 

“Kraglin, do you know how to fly one of those?” Peter asks the older boy, his nose pressed against the glass of a portside window, staring at an incoming M-ship. He scratches the translator chip over his right ear, where the fresh implant still itches.

“Yeah, o’ course… the First Mate lets me take his out fer a spin sometime.” Kraglin leans against the wall just to the right of the window, watching Pete watch the approaching vessel.

“Let’s steal one and fly away. I’m sure when we get back to earth, my grandpa will adopt you. Then, he’ll be so happy he’ll let us watch TV all day and take us to Disneyland to meet Mickey Mouse and Phil Simms,” Pete turns his head to meet Kraglin’s gaze, “How about it?”

“We ain’t goin’ nowhere, Quill,” he responds, exasperated. Peter was always plotting flimsy plans for escape back to Terra, which more often than not involved Kraglin doing most of the work and being rewarded for his troubles with things that were not millions of credits. He flicks the side of Peter’s head for good measure.

“Ow!” Peter rubs his temple. “Why not? You don’t like being here any more’n I do! On Earth, we can be regular kids.”

“I ain’t a li’l kid like you. I’m crew. I got ‘sponsibilities, and one of ‘em is makin’ sure you stay put an’ learn how ta act right an’ not end up in the stew pot.”

Peter usually crumbled at any vague mention of the crew eating him, but when the threat was issued from the other boy’s mouth, it somehow lost its effect. “Nuh uh; you’re a kid just like me. Did they brainwash you when they kidnapped you, too? We call it Stocking Symptoms back home. You get kidnapped and then you think you’re one of them, but you aren’t.”

“I weren’t kidnapped, I was recruited by the First Mate, idjit.”

Peter’s eyes go wide as he whispers, “Did he bad-touch you? At school, they told us that sometimes strangers snatch kids to touch their no-no places, and then their parents never hear from them again.”

“What the fuck… No! Tellarune’s my old man,” Kraglin’s face twists in disgust.

Peter looks relieved then breaks out into a wide grin. “Oh wow! You’re lucky you get to spend so much time with your dad. No wonder you don’t wanna leave.”

Kraglin shoves Peter a bit more forcefully than intended. The boy falls hard to the metal floor, wincing as he massages the pain in his backside. Tears well up in his eyes, threatening to fall.

“Don’t you dare cry,” Kraglin warns, fists balled up. Sometimes, when he looks at Peter, he sees his friends who came before: Zeddy’s anger and determination, Tyjak’s compassion, the twins’ playfulness, Roh-Korr’s gullibility, Rem’s confidence… And like them all, Peter is soft, much too soft for Ravager life, which is why Kraglin can’t go easy on him. “I swear, if you start up again, I’ll really give ya somethin’ ta cry ‘bout.”

“I’m... I'm not gonna cry,” Peter chokes out, his voice trembling.

“Good.”

Unfortunately, Kraglin’s quest to harden Peter is surprisingly undermined by Cap’n, who takes an unusual interest in the boy compared to his half-siblings.

“No one touches Quill’s shit, ‘specially the music box,” Yondu orders after catching Horuz and Gef tossing the Walkman between them over Peter’s head to his mounting distress while Kraglin watched from the sidelines, choosing to let Peter sort it out on his lonesome rather than intervene on his behalf.

When Yondu had snapped it from Gef’s grubby hands, Peter attempted to bull rush him in a blind rage, forcing Cap’n to scoop him into the air by his collar. Peter had bawled, snot running from his nose, his hands pulling at Yondu’s unyielding grip, before Yondu let him drop to the ground and yelled at him about attacking his superior officer. However, instead of spacing Peter’s device out an airlock, Yondu had confiscated it, a clear sign of mercy he wouldn’t have afforded any other Ravagers.

It’s with no small measure of surprise that Kraglin notes Peter’s bright orange headphones have returned to their rightful spot encircling his neck a mere three days later.

“Cap’n give those back to you,” Kraglin leans over to poke the spongy foam of the headphones.

Peter slaps his hand away. “Nope, took ‘em back when he wasn’t looking.”

“You stole ‘em? From Cap’n? You tryin’ ta git yerself dead, Quill?” Kraglin asks incredulously. No way his music box is worth his life. The kid must be dumber than he thought.

“They’re mine! It’s not stealing if they belong to me,” Peter huffs, protectively grabbing the Walkman with both hands against his chest and looking at Kraglin with a fair amount of suspicion as if the youth was dense enough to steal hot merchandise sought after by a certain homicidal blue bastard.

Kraglin straightens up, hands in his pockets. “Dibs on yer balls.”

“What?” Peter shrinks in small around his groin.

“They must be bigger’an yer brain, an’ I want the largest piece when Cap’n cooks you up.”

Peter turns pallid, and his bottom lip starts to tremble as he fixes wet eyes on the older boy.

“Oh don’t look at me like that. I ain’t gonna eat yer balls,” Kraglin states, rolling his eyes. When Peter’s shoulders slump in relief, he adds, “They’ll be way too tough. Everyone knows the liver is the best part.”

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, Kraglin can’t even escape him during sleep cycle; Peter preferring to bed down with him over any of the other crew.

“Can you keep a secret?” Pete asks earnestly one night after prodding Kraglin awake with a tap-tap-tapping of his foot against the other boy’s calf.

“What is it this time?” Kraglin asks, yawning and rubbing the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes. “It better be important.” Kraglin hopes Peter is about to divulge the secret location of Pirate King Santoli’s legendary treasure trove and offer to go halfsies on the take, but knowing Peter, it was probably something stupid, like confiding that he had a crush on Oblo because Oblo had smiled at him earlier that day, and he had long hair, and only girls had long hair.

“I think Yondu is my dad,” Peter whispers. Kraglin can hear the cautious hope in his voice. Shame he has to be the one to crush it.

“Naw, Cap’n ain’t yer daddy,” Kraglin says after a long pause.

“No, see, I got proof. My mom said my dad was a spaceman and that he would come get me after she… And Yondu picked me up the same day,” Peter insists. “He’s my dad, Kraglin. He took me just like your dad got you after… well, you know.”

“Don’t be stupid, Quill. You don’t look anythin' like Cap’n. ‘Sides, I was there. Cap’n just saw some hairless monkey runnin’ across a field, an’ decided to pick up a special treat fer us, but then ya went an’ pissed yerself cryin’. That kind’a fear in meat makes the taste somethin’ awful. Not that Horuz was oppose ta takin’ a bite anyway. But after he got a good look at ya, Cap’n figured you was worth more alive… but barely,” Kraglin says callously, embellishing an old lie repeated often enough for Peter to know it by heart. It’s kinder than the truth.

“…Oh,” Peter sounds on the verge of tears, curling into himself and away from contact with the other boy.

Kraglin exhales loudly. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t worry too much ‘bout it. You wouldn’t want such a bastard fer a daddy anyway.”

Peter lies still for a moment, then: “You think my real dad is out there looking for me?”

_Yes._

“I don’t know, but does it matter?” Kraglin mumbles, drifting off to sleep. “That fucker left you an’ yer mama. Left her to die alone, and left ya ta spend weeks wonderin’ if you were goin’ ta be next, crouched in the dark, with only a knife an’ the skitterin’ rustle of orloni ta keep ya company.”

“Huh? I wasn’t alone. Grandpa would’ve taken care of me.”

“…It’s a metaphor, Quill.”

“What’s a metaphor?” Peter asks, but Kraglin is already pretending to be asleep.


	4. Lone Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin reconciles with his father and develops a crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The concept of the name “Yondu Udonta” being a misheard slave number is from Write_Like_An_American and features prominently in their fanfics “Straight Until Boiled” and “Blame it on the Stars” (which was the first Kragdu fic I read that started me on this journey).

**10 Years Earlier**

A Kree ship lists aimlessly across the expanse of space, dark and foreboding. It’s one of their smaller transport crafts, and therefore its absence was easily written off by Kree command as a predictable loss in the ongoing war between Hala and Xandar. With damaged engines and no outgoing radio signals, it’s seemingly deserted and ripe for salvage, or so that is the assessment of the situation when the Starhawk rendezvous with the crippled vessel expecting to strip it of its valuable cargo.

What Stakar Ogord finds within is not weapons nor is it treasure, but the cargo is not without value.

The stale air reeks of battle slaves, all dead or dying in their pens. The lucky ones had long succumbed to battle-rot, their infected, gangrenous wounds stinking of rancid meat and necrosis, but this had not stopped the less fortunate from feasting upon them once the gnawing hunger had set in.

His men canvass the area for survivors, of which there are few, with most feral from madness and too weak to be saved. When a young Tellarune Obfonteri hesitates to fire a merciful blast into their fevered skulls, Stakar pushes him aside and puts them down himself, one after the other. Tullk had placed a reassuring arm across the young recruit’s wobbly drooping shoulders. _Ain’ usually like this, lad,_ he had said. _Mos’ blokes we kill can figh’ back._

“Captain, over here! We got a live one!” Martinex calls out. Blue scarred skin stretched over sharp jutting bones and dull red crystalline implant cresting his skull, an undersized Centaurian slave hisses from a curled position in a corner, pursing his dry chapped lips in a valiant attempt to whistle at the invading enemy killing his fellow compatriots. When he fails to produce the expected trill, he raises a shaky limb, jabbing the arrow gripped tightly in his fist in their general direction.

Grimly, Stakar raises his blaster, but his first mate quickly grasps his arm to still his fire. “Wait!” Martinex exclaims, “Look at how he moves. I think this one might last if we take him with us.”

Stakar considers the slave, the only one left from his regiment, eyeing him over the top of his blaster. His breathing is audible, even from this distance, but he had managed to pull himself up the wall to sit upright. His arm shudders under the slight weight of his crude weapon, but at least he can lift it.

Stakar holsters his weapon. He has made his decision.

Later, when the Centaurian had sufficiently recovered, Stakar stands over him with a bowl of thick broth. The slave locks eyes with the rounded bottom, and his nostrils flare at the savory smell wafting down in delicate waves of steam.

“Tell me your name, son.”

It’s a direct order from his new master, and the slave knows from experience that it’s wise to comply, particularly in his weakened condition.

“One-Two-Two-One-Three,” he answers in broken Kree, hoping to exchange compliance for food.

Stakar taps his translator chip. “Come again?”

“One. Two. Two. One. Three,” 12213 repeats slow, as if Stakar is a particularly dim-witted child.

“Yon-Du-Du-Yon-Ta?” Stakar attempts.

At 12213’s blank stare, he tries again, more confidently: “Yondu Udonta?”

12213 couldn’t care less what the shiny man calls him, so long as he feeds him and doesn’t beat him too often.

He nods in agreement.

Stakar rewards him with hot soup.

 

* * *

 

**Present Day**

Deeply troubled with what he has recently learned, Tullk pulls Tellarune aside one morning.

“Rue, there’s somethin’ ye shoul’ know. ‘Bou’ Kraglin.”

 

* * *

 

Tellarune tracks down his son, who stands outside an open ventilation shaft down a little-used corridor. The vacuum hose spirals around one arm as he peers into the depths after his charge. Based on the length of hose he holds, much of it has already been fed through the duct system. The Quill boy is out of earshot.

When Kraglin turns at the sound of hurried footsteps, Tellarune grabs his shoulder and knocks him against the wall.

“Did ya threaten Cap’n over what happened to them kids?” He growls low, just in case others are nearby. He doesn’t want Kraglin’s near-mutiny to become common knowledge amongst the crew, much less the fact that he had gotten away with it unscathed. At best, it suggested nepotism. At worst, it would give less-loyal Ravagers _ideas_ about the vulnerability of the Eclector’s high command.

Surprisingly, those implications are the least of Tellarune’s concerns.

“Cap’n rat me out?” Kraglin answers nonchalantly, confirming his worst fears.

“You stupid, stupid boy,” his father whispers loudly, barely containing his rage. “You could’a died!” Raising Kraglin so his toes graze the floor, he shakes him for emphasis.

Kraglin grips his father’s white-knuckled hands fisting the leather off his shoulder. “Why do ya even care? Would’a been easier! Relieve ya o’ any annoyin’ obligations.”

“What would I ‘ave done if you died, huh? If he murdered ya?”

“Carry on like normal?” Kraglin releases his hold to swipe the dust prickling his watery eyes. “You’ve always picked the Ravagers first! They’re more important than me, were more important than mama even!”

Tellarune abruptly drops him, and Kraglin braces himself for what he supposes is a well-earned beating. He flinches when his father wraps strong arms around him instead, holding him tight.

“He may be my Cap’n, but yer my son, Kraglin. That’ll never change. Maybe someday you’ll understand.”

Kraglin’s frigid demeanor shatters under that warm embrace, and for the first time, he’s 13 years young.

“Just… why? Why do we have’ta stay? Why do I have’ta look after Quill? He’s such an annoyin’ li’l asshole. He cries over everythin’, an’… I don’t git it. He’s so fuckin’ lucky. He gits to live. All of ‘em died thinkin’ they was goin’ home. I couldn’t save none of ‘em.”

Tellarune still remembers the putrid stench of that day, his quivering wet-noodle arms and faltering resolve, and from that dark ship of untold horrors, the lone survivor emerging from it all.

“There was nothin’ you could’a done fer any of ‘em. You can only help the one that’s left. It’s the best you can do, son.”

Kraglin snuffles, voice cracking, “…I still hate you.”

“Uh huh, I know.”

“Like, a lot… Pops.”

Tellarune tightens his embrace, rubbing his son’s back against his shuddering breaths.

 

* * *

 

Under Kraglin’s watch, Peter progresses quickly from duct cleaning to petty thievery. Too bad the boy lacked perspective on his own outlaw prowess.

“’I’m the best thief in the world’ ya said,” Kraglin grumbles sarcastically from the other side of the cell. “'I’m goin’ ta steal that lady’s necklace from right under her nose,’ ya said. Now lookit where yer cocky bullshit got us, Quill.”

“How was I to know she had eyes in the back of her head?”

“Because all Purghans have eyes in the back of their heads, dumbass. I told ya that. Repeatedly. As ya ran ahead of me to pull the stupidest heist in the history o’ forever.” Kraglin knows he’s exaggerating, but only slightly.

“I thought it was an expression, like what my mom always said back on Earth. I didn’t know you meant it _literally_.” Peter explains defensively, kicking his feet out and scuffing the soles of his boots against the cell floor. He toes the imaginary line separating his half of the cell from Kraglin’s. “They’re coming to get us, right?”

“Perhaps in five to seven years after we’ve served out our sentences, if we’re lucky. Ravagers don’t wait fer nobody. Yer late to the checkpoint, ya git left behind ‘til when, or if, they pass through again. No exceptions.” It’s not strictly true. Kraglin is reasonably sure his father will come for them… eventually, maybe after a couple months once he figures out where they are, and the Eclector makes its way back to this particular planet, but he’s pissed at Quill and wants to make the boy sweat it out a bit, teach him a lesson about disobeying his commands.

Kraglin knows Tellarune can’t very well stall the whole ship to search for his son and Cap’n’s pet project; they have places to go, deadlines to meet, credits to earn; but the thought of being left behind _again_ still stings.

Irked, Kraglin twists the metaphorical knife, “Ya know what they do to soft Terrans like you in prison? Yer goin’ ta wish Cap’n let us eat chu.”

Peter doesn’t know what the older boy is talking about, but if it’s worse than cannibalism... He crosses the short distance to Kraglin, urgently pulling on his sleeve and looking up at him with misty eyes ripe with terror, “You won’t let ‘em, right Kraglin?”

Kraglin considers telling Quill he’s on his own, that he got them into this mess, and Kraglin is done cleaning up his mistakes.

“… No; you’ll be fine.”

Peter smiles then, latching onto Kraglin’s midsection like a leech to his extreme discomfort.

_Damn it._

Kraglin sighs. “But chu have ta do everythin’ I say from now on. None o’ yer–“

Just then, shrill sirens break the relative quiet of their jailhouse bonding moment as Yondu saunters through the main doors and strolls up to their cell, keys spinning around his index finger. Speechless, Kraglin stares incredulously at his rescuer, while Peter breaks away and runs up to Yondu, squishing his happy face against the bars of the cell.

“Let us out! Let us out! Let us out!” Peter practically bounces on his feet.

“All right, all right. When we git back to the Eclector, one o’ ya is goin’ to explain why I had’a take time out’a my busy schedule ta come an’ break you lot out’a the clink,” Yondu says calmly, sirens still blaring in the background, as he unlocks the cell. “Yer costin’ me money, Quill. I could’a been out there earnin’ credits ‘stead I have ta steal back my ‘mergency food supply. Should’nt’a stopped my boys from eatin’ you right out.”

Peter is cowed into submission by mention of his default status. “Well, you see–”

“I said when we git back to the Eclector. Now, we got’a move,” Yondu says as he clutches Quill’s arm and indicates Kraglin follow him out.

As he trails behind Yondu through the police station with cops either dead or handcuffed to structural piping, Kraglin contemplates this new side of his Captain. Clearly, he could have let them rot in that cell. Unlike Quill, Kraglin has no delusions of grandeur regarding his place in the Ravager hierarchy. He knows they aren’t the most important crewmembers, yet Cap’n came to collect them personally. It’s the first time someone acted so quickly on his behalf, not even Tellarune had–

 _Cap’n wouldn’t ditch us._ His father’s voice whispers in his memory.

Perhaps his father hadn’t been wrong to follow a leader who clearly cared about the least of his crew.

Plus, now that he is paying attention, the man has a nice ass.

 

* * *

 

“How did ya meet mama?” Kraglin asks his father while they lounge in the break room later. Quill had been sent to the brig to think about his thoughtless stupidity. After hearing their story, Yondu figured Kraglin had done his duty to the best of his ability considering the hyperactive baseless confidence of his ward and spared him the same fate.

“Why ya askin’? Some jailbird catch yer eye?”

Caught unaware, Kraglin looks sheepish and guilty before he corrects his expression to curious indifference.

Tellarune sighs, “What did I tell ya ‘bout planet-bound girls?”

“No, it’s not that…” Kraglin half-lies, but his father looks skeptical. “Just… wonderin’ is all. Mama used ta tell me you were a merchant’s apprentice, but that was obviously a lie.”

Kraglin isn’t too sure if his mother wanted to spare him from the shame of having a space pirate for a father or from a life of crime once he found out about his criminal parentage, but whatever the reason, he suspected his honest-to-a-fault mother had fabricated a lot of his father’s history.

“I _was_ a merchant’s apprentice back on Xandar… well, more of a delivery boy. That’s how we met. Used ta deliver knickknacks to her Ma’s shop, an’ I thought she was the prettiest girl I ever did see. Smart, too. Could haggle with the best o’ ‘em, and handled the switch with the speed an’ grace o’ a taplebird. Could spot a sneak-thief from half a block away.”

“But apparently not when they were right in front of ‘er,” Kraglin quips.

“You want’a hear the story or not?” Tellarune asks irritably. Kraglin shuts his mouth and nods.

“Now, if you want’a land a quality girl like yer mama, persistence is key. I was always stoppin’ by when we was on Xandar, even if I didn’t have no shipment fer her. I brought ‘er li’l gifts, just some knickknacks from far-flung worlds she’d never visited, talked to ‘er… tried ta get ‘er to smile. Didn’t hurt that I was charmin’ as fuck–”

“An’ so humble.”

“What did I just say ‘bout interruptin’ me?”

Kraglin resolves to stay quiet, but his father isn’t making it easy for him.

“Anyways, we… started a relationship o’ sorts, and then you came along,” Tellarune finishes. He may not have a handle on this fatherhood business yet, but telling your son he was the accident that got his mama kicked out of her family home and precipitated his father’s illicit career in search of higher-paying work was _probably_ the wrong move.

Tellarune didn’t quite know how it had all gone wrong. Somewhere along the way, the infrequent visits and trinkets hadn’t been enough, and Brista grew dissatisfied with his constant disappearing act.

 _You can’t be a part-time father_ , she had said. _It’s unfair to Kraglin._

 _What am I s’posed ta do? I send back money. I visit as often as I can,_ he had argued.

_Stay. We can make it work ‘ere. The shop’s doin’ decent. You don’t have ta be a pirate no more._

_Why don’t chu both come with me on the Eclector?_

Or so the argument had gone. For years.

“So… persistence ya say?” Kraglin disrupts his reverie.

“An’ that’s hard with planet-bound girls, son. Find yerself a spacer. One ya won’t leave every five minutes, or at least is willin’ ta come with ya,” Tellarune says. He thinks better of it and adds, “Also, the odd gift don’t hurt here an’ there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep thinking about Kraglin in that mutiny scene on Berhert, when he says, “That ain’t right! I just gotta say it this one time, Cap’n… No matter how many times Quill betrays you, you protect him like none of the rest of us much matter!” He comes across as this guy who has never come first in anybody’s life, and for years, he thought Yondu was different, that he cared for his crew (and by extension, Kraglin) equally. Realizing Yondu greatly favored Quill was a personal betrayal so large, he couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut. Taserface took his words to mean that Yondu had gone soft on Quill, but really, Kraglin had an expectation that Yondu was a little soft on all of them at least a bit and they all mattered to him somewhat. Anyways, that’s the meta underlying this chapter.


	5. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To his father’s horror, Kraglin starts negotiating Yondu’s trinket acquisitions. Tellarune has the shovel talk with his oblivious boss. It goes better than expected when neither one understands what the other is trying to convey.

**10 Years Earlier**

Although he was loathe to admit it, Stakar worried about the new recruit, Yondu Udonta. To save his life in such a fashion was to be responsible for him and his future actions, and Stakar always took his responsibilities seriously. Heavily traumatized and wary of his new home, Yondu needed patience and guidance if he was to become the right sort of disreputable, the type that separated Stakar’s Ravagers from the many unscrupulous pirate bands plaguing the star-ways. The young man was damaged… fragile…

“Son of a frutarkin’ orloni-suckin’ whore!” Yondu spits out as he throws his meal tray aside and catapults himself into the abdomen of a much larger Badoon recruit, tumbling both to the ground.

…Which was why Stakar put Martinex in charge of him.

Maybe that would teach his first mate a lesson about taking in strays.

As the crew congregates around the wrestling duo, taking bets and jeering at every flip and turn of fortune, Yondu manages to twist up and over, landing on top of the Badoon’s back, trapping his muscular legs with his own and wrenching his arm with such torque into an angle suggestive of dislocation.

“Yondu!” Martinex jostles his way through the crowd to the spectacle at its center. “Yondu! Let him go!”

Yondu glares at Martinex, boxed jaw tight with defiance. He uses his grip on the Badoon’s trapped arm to push himself up, wringing the limb fractionally more to his opponent’s strangled pained grunt and Martinex’s displeasure.

“What?” Yondu plays dumb. It had always worked on his former masters… Sometimes.

Martinex clutches his shoulder to pull him away, grumbling about anarchy in the lower ranks and troublesome rookies who couldn’t be left alone for ten minutes.

He forcibly pushes Yondu into a seat across from Tullk and Tellarune.

“You two. Watch him while I go clean up his damn mess. Make sure he doesn’t castrate anyone or set anything on fire or commit any number of terrible atrocities he’s capable of when unsupervised,” Martinex orders before returning to attend to the moaning Badoon recruit still on the ground, his arm floppy as he cradles it with his good hand.

“Ye damn-near tore ‘is arm off, laddie,” Tullk comments.

Yondu’s narrowed eyes are fever-bright with residual adrenaline as they settle on his new temporary keepers. “He shouldn’t’a taken my tin o’ beasties.”

“All that fer some worms?” Tellarune asks, leery of their new companion.

Yondu shrugs. “They’re m’ favorite.”

Tullk laughs, deep and guttural. “I like ye… The name’s Tullk, by the by. This ‘ere’s Rue. We’re goin’a ge’ on jus’ fine.”

Yondu and Tellarune both face Tullk, twin skeptical expressions alighting their faces.

_Unlikely._

 

* * *

**Present Day**

Tellarune doesn’t know the root cause of his son’s sudden attitude adjustment, but he’s grateful for the improvement in Kraglin’s demeanor toward Cap’n and Ravager life in general.

Around Yondu, Kraglin stands straighter, engrossed in his commanding presence, attentive to his every snarl and smile in equal measure, and meeting every order with a crisp enthusiastic “Yes sir!” Trying to capture his notice, he purposely hangs around Cap’n, and by-extension Quill, fulfilling all assigned tasks with care and competence exceeding expectation. He had even gone to the barber willingly and requested a short mohawk to emulate Cap’n’s signature crest.

Mooning over the dreamy older man one day, Kraglin idly asks Quill, “Don’t chu think Cap’n’s kind’a cool? He can clear an entire room o’ hostiles with a whistle. He don’t take no shit from no one, an’ he’s so fuckin’ funny.”

He doesn’t tell Pete how he melts seeing the charismatic Cap’n’s deadly glower give way to wide crooked grins, finding the seamless transitions from serious to snide and back incredibly captivating. Perhaps his attraction to bad boys is just the folly of youth, a phase, but for now, he basks in the fluttery rush of first love.

Peter watches Yondu practically vibrate with a loud sustained burp before openly picking his chipped teeth with the dirty claw of his thumb, in defiance of all rules of etiquette his mother had impressed upon him at a young age.

“He seems like an old smelly butthead to me.”

“Oh what do you know, Quill,” Kraglin states, affronted by Pete’s willful blindness to Cap’n’s finer attributes, conveniently forgetting his own earlier assessment of the man’s (lack of) charm.

 

* * *

 

During their next shore leave in the bustling markets of Priiyor, Kraglin resolves to hone Peter’s shoplifting skills.

“Pick somethin’, an’ we’ll make a go fer it,” Kraglin offers him first choice magnanimously. He internally bets himself that the boy will elect to steal something worthless, having never needed to learn to assess a mark’s value in relation to the risk in pilfering it.

“How ‘bout that doohickey from over there? That frog-thing with the slug eyes?”

Kraglin scopes out Pete’s selection: the mark is absolute rubbish, as he thought, and located at the end of a small stand, probably single-proprietor, but what causes him pause is the youngish woman manning it. Tall and thin as a beanpole, she has a sharp look in her startlingly-familiar blue eyes that momentarily disarms Kraglin, making his breath catch and knees buckle slightly before he recomposes himself. She turns slightly and the resemblance mercifully fizzles.

“Not from that one, Quill. Try to git somethin’ from there instead.” Kraglin tilts his head towards a larger souvenir shop, one of a chain of similar stores in the region.

“Why? I thought we weren’t s’posed to get caught. The bigger places have so much more security.”

“They also have a larger area to cover, an’ employees that don’t give two shits,” Kraglin reasons. “Single owner like that, she’s goin’a notice when ya pinch somethin’, then you’ll git a boxed ear an’ longer criminal record fer yer trouble.”

When Peter remains dubious about the merits of his choice, Kraglin audibly huffs in frustration. Luckily, he has no qualms manipulating the brat. It was time to appeal to Quill’s overblown ego. “Consider it a challenge. How’re you ever goin’a become ‘legendary outlaw’ Starlord if yer always goin’ after small fry?”

Peter perks up. “Ohhhh, I get it. We have to steal from the rich and give to the poor, like Robin Hood?”

“…Yeah sure, the legendary robbin’ Hood, an’ right now, they’re rich, an’ I’m poor. So, go git me somethin’ good.”

“You got it!” Peter heads toward his new target. “Cover me; I’m going in.”

Good thing Pete is so malleable, like putty in his hands.

Peter peruses the displays of the shop, evaluating various items, lifting and turning them over before placing them back on the shelf, usually in the wrong spot. Kraglin watches him from the corner of his eye a couple aisles over, silently urging the boy to pick something soon.

A saleswoman approaches Pete. “Can I help you, young man?”

He’s momentarily startled before schooling his features into that of an innocent child. “Um… I’m shopping for my… mother, and I was wondering if you have any bracelets?” He fumbles over his impromptu cover story.

“Oh yes, of course. Right this way,” she says, leading him to a display case.

_Damn it, ya never ask fer somethin’ they have in stock,_ Kraglin thinks, cursing Quill’s ineptitude.

Peter nervously looks at the selection the saleswoman places before him. He has no money, and he’s not sure how to politely extract himself from this debacle.

“Um… actually, can I see that thing over there? The white one with five sets of arms?” Peter asks, pointing at a delicate figurine on the shelf behind her.

When she turns to retrieve the requested item at Peter’s direction, he pockets one of the bracelets laid out in front of him without pausing his verbal instructions or breaking eye contact with the decoy object. Kraglin is moderately impressed at his ability to multi-task, but groans when a security guard places a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Peter stiffens immediately.

Thinking quickly, Kraglin pushes a display of novelty glass tumblers, crashing the entire shelving unit into another full of ceramic souvenir ashtrays. The guard spins around at the cacophony of sound, allowing Peter to slip his light hold and quickly escape amidst the confusion.

Fifteen harrowing minutes later, the two are crouching, out-of-breath, in an alley five blocks away.

“Damn it, Quill!” Kraglin reprimands him through gasps of air. “If yer goin’a try to steal somethin’ from a case, be sure to switch it out with a passable fake… any idjit can tell the diff’rence between five an’ six.”

“Sorry, Kraglin… I had… to improvise… and I panicked,” Pete replies, still winded himself.

Kraglin squints his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. “Fuckin’… Rule #1: Don’t git caught. If ya find yerself in over yer head, jus’ don’t go through with it. There’ll be other marks.”

“At least I got this,” Pete says, producing the bracelet.

Kraglin snatches the score from his outstretched hand to examine it.

“It’s fake.”

 

* * *

 

“Thievin’s always a risk, Quill. If yer goin’a take that risk, yer goin’a have ta be sure the score’s worth it,” Kraglin lectures the boy as he leads him back to the rendezvous site.

Peter just rolls his eyes, silently imitating the youth's sanctimonious speech and mannerisms behind his back. Kraglin was such a stickler for the rules of criminal behavior.

“Stop makin’ faces an’ actually listen, dumbass.”

Pete freezes. _Kraglin isn’t Purghan… is he?_

Sensing the boy’s abrupt pause, Kraglin turns around, a small smile threatening to overtake his serious façade. “Gotcha.”

Pete’s face twists into a sour frown. “Did not!”

Before it can erupt into an argument of exceedingly childish proportions, Kraglin spies Cap’n at a small stand of bobble-heads across the street with a duo of interested police officers watching the exchange from a corner.

Bending over to peer at a four-eyed dog at one end, Yondu flicks its wobbly head, smiling when it bobs ever faster. The owner of the stand openly eyes him, wary of the seven-pointed flame on his chest indicating membership in one of the notorious Ravager clans. Staring directly into the man’s constipated face, he palms the trinket and slowly moves to place it in his interior coat pocket.

The small business owner isn’t about to be overtly cheated out of a sale. “You gonna pay for that?”

Kraglin quickly appears at Yondu’s side. “How much?”

The man evaluates the newcomer, dressed in the same colors as the potential thief. “…Ten credits.”

Kraglin is in his element. “Fuck no, I saw the same thing at LaBelle’s down the street for a fraction of the price. Make it three.”

“Eight.”

“Three.”

“Seven.”

“Four an’ my Cap’n ‘ere won’t whistle an arrow through yer skull.”

The shopowner scoffs, “He wouldn’t murder me in broad daylight in front of cops over three credits.”

“He would, an’ even if the cops arrest ‘im fer it, you’ll be dead any which way,” Kraglin says flatly, with no hint of levity to diffuse the severity of the situation.

The man gives a curt nod of agreement to the boy’s conditions.

_Success._

 

* * *

 

“Ya look right pleased with that one, Cap’n. Merchant shit ‘isself when ya whistled fer it?” Tellarune asks later, when Cap’n returns to the ship, the bobble-headed dog in hand. Glancing over his datapad, he notes that the plastic tchotchke is not particularly valuable, but such considerations never much figured into Yondu’s perplexing enjoyment of his collection.

“Naw, Kraglin got me this ‘un. It’s a right cute li’l bugger. Look-it how its head boggles,” Yondu flicks the ear of the four-eyed pooch to demonstrate.

Tellarune nearly drops his handheld device. He carefully assesses the gift.

“Kraglin… _got_ that. Fer you?” He asks weakly.

“Yeah, ya never told me yer boy was so good at negotiatin’. Must’a got it from his Ma ‘cause you can’t haggle fer shit.” Yondu says as he lines up the bobbing knickknack on the edge of his control console, a place of honor amongst the numerous trinkets he had collected over the years. He repositions it to face outward so any crew who look his way would be treated to the waggly pink tongue on its dopey face.

Tellarune weighs his next words.

“Ya know Kraglin just turned fourteen. He won’t be an adult fer a few years now.”

“So the kid’s advanced fer his age. Maybe some o’ it will rub off on Quill. Stars know that boy could stand to gain some skills… or common sense… or hell, I’d settle fer him bein’ able to sit still an’ not cause no trouble fer five minutes.”

Kraglin’s precocious maturity is not the point Tellarune is attempting to make. He tries again: “Well, even when kids _seem_ advanced, they’re still kids, Cap’n. They don’t know what they’re doin’ or what they want. They break real easy-like.”

“Wouldn’t know much ‘bout that. Was never much of a child myself,” Yondu shrugs. When the dog slows to a stop, he taps its nose again, smiling at the frantic nod of its silly head.

Tellarune wants to knock that trinket to the ground and crush its carefree wobbling head under the heel of his boot.

“Yeah... well, I ‘member when Kraglin came along, I was young. Didn’t know shit ‘bout nothin’. Then, suddenly, I have this kid an’ I need’a be ‘sponsible,” he says instead.

Being a newly-minted father himself, this piques Yondu’s interest.

“So what? You tellin’ me you hunkered down an’ figured it out an’ now everythin’s daisies?” It was nice that Obfonteri was so proud of how competent his son turned out despite clueless parenting, but he didn’t need to rub it in when Yondu had been saddled with a child who needed to wear a retractable space mask at all times, even when surrounded by plentiful atmosphere, because you never know with that kid.

“Fuck no; I left. Again an’ again. An’… I regret it, ya know. Strained things with Brista, an’ now Kraglin ain’t too keen on me. Don’t right blame ‘im fer it, but I’m tryin’ to be better. Tryin’ to look out fer him.”

Tellarune looks straight at Yondu. “Anybody hurt ‘im, I don’t right know what I’d do ‘bout it. Prob’ly start at the feet. Work my way up. Git creative somewhere in the middle, ya know what I’m sayin’.”

“Yeah, I git it.” Yondu nods his head in agreement. As a fellow parent of sorts, he understands exactly how his first mate feels. He doesn’t know what he’d do if anything happened to Quill, but it would involve copious amounts of whistling through non-vital body parts. He wouldn’t make it quick.

“Just so we understand each other.” Tellarune plasters on a tight smile, patting his captain on the back, satisfied that he had relayed his point with minimal discomfiture and bloodshed. It’s not that he thinks Yondu will actually do anything to Kraglin, but it makes him feel a touch better that he has spelled out the consequences of such a course of action.

“It ain’t easy bein’ a daddy, eh Obfonteri?” Yondu commiserates in paternal solidarity.

“Kids’ll be the death o’ ya.”

 

* * *

 

When Tellarune finds Kraglin later, he sends Quill on a fool’s errand. This painfully-awkward conversation didn’t need witnesses.

“Cap’n showed me that pup ya got ‘im,” he begins, careful to cultivate a non-judgmental tone. He can freak out later, but right now, he needs to be the adult, which requires composure and finesse.

“It weren’t nothin’,” Kraglin says defensively. “He was goin’a lift it from some poor sap, an’ I just got ‘im a better price fer it.”

“…Right.”

“An’ you know, Mama wouldn’t like it… us stealin’ from the smaller shopkeepers. They’re just tryin’ ta git by, she’d say,” Kraglin reasons, nervously scratching the back of his head while looking anywhere but at his father.

“Sounds plausible.”

“’Cause it’s the truth.” _Sort of._

Tellarune could let it go. He had, back when Kraglin first started asking for relationship advice despite living amongst an all-male crew and even earlier when he caught him in that closet with a half-naked Roh-Korr. He always let it go, because the alternative would have been difficult, and Tellarune always took the easy way out when it came to Kraglin.

Not anymore.

“Kraglin... son… I like whiskey.”

Okay, maybe he was going to take the slightly-easier circuitous route.

“…Good fer you, I guess.” Kraglin looks at him, perplexed but grateful for the change in topic.

“An’ some people like gin, an’ some other people like both or none or completely diff’rent other drinks. I don’t know; it’s a big galaxy out there,” he continues.

Kraglin simply stares at him. _Did he just…_

“I guess what I’m tryin’ ta say is that none of it matters. I don’t give a shit what chu like to drink. It don’t make no diff’rence in how I see ya.”  

“So, yer sayin’ if I like… gin, you wouldn’t think any less o’ me?” Kraglin hesitates, his restless left hand tapping against his leg as he studies a particularly interesting rust mark down and to the right of his father.

“Course not, son. But maybe… if you could wait a bit to enjoy gin when yer older. An’ while one gin can taste great, try out different brands. Don’t settle on the first gin that comes yer way.”

“Okay…” While Kraglin can feel the anxious tightness building in his chest diffuse at his father’s acceptance, he would agree to nearly anything to end this embarrassing conversation.

“An’ maybe not gin that’s over twice yer age an’ yer boss–”

“I ain’t… It’s not…” Kraglin sputters, blushing. “Okay, I git it.”

“An’ here,” his father says, as he holds out a strip of condoms. “Just ‘cause gin can’t git pregnant, don’t mean ya won’t catch nothin’, ‘specially if ya like older vintages that git passed ‘round at parties.”

“Pops! Fuckin’ A… I said I got it.” Kraglin is too busy covering his face with his hands to take the proffered gift, so Tellarune slides them into the chest pocket of his mortified son’s jumpsuit, lightly tapping the exposed top down so they don’t peek out.

Kraglin glares daggers at him from between his fingers. “Yer stretchin’ that metaphor mighty thin.”

Growing bolder, Tellarune crosses his arms, the tip of his mouth quirking up. “If they’re stretchin’ too thin an’ feelin’ uncomfortable, go to the commissary to git the next size up an’ a compliment’ry high-five from yer ol’ man.”

To his satisfaction, his son visibly cringes.

“I hate you so much right now,” Kraglin says, but it’s lost much of its vitriol.

His father smiles at the change.

“Tha’s my boy.”


	6. Momento Mori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin suffers a loss and gains a brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a while, but Kraglin brought only a few things from Xandar in Chapter 1: a set of photographs, a scarf his mother knitted for him, and a single gold earring. I only point it out because it’s important in this and subsequent chapters. On a lighter note, although we only see him for like ten seconds in canon, Tullk is that loud, loyal, supportive friend with zero filter who just wants to have a good time. Kraglin’s father is more cautious, which is why he’s first mate over Tullk.
> 
> Also, I swear the rest of this fic looks pretty firm now, and this is most likely the last time that the fic grows more chapters. Probably.

**Eight Years Earlier**

Tellarune, Yondu, and Tullk stand at attention, facing out the large window of the Starhawk’s bow towards the bursts of crackling rainbows and sonorous beats of the horns of Ogord. They have come to pay respects to one of their own, a fallen Ravager Captain. Yondu’s eyes go large and bright, drinking in the spectacle as thousands of fists beat against chests in reverence to a single man.

“When I go, I’m goin’a git full Cap’n’s honors,” Yondu declares later, long after the conclusion of the ceremony. “Colors, horns, the respect an’ tears o’ my crew… the whole kit-an’-caboodle. I ain’t goin’a be a grunt forever, just you watch. Me an’ Marty? We’re goin’a break off an’ start our own crew.”

“Yer dreamin’. Martinex may like ya well enough. You may even be fuckin’, but he ain’t never goin’a leave Stakar,” Tellarune says, his own experience coloring his perception.

“Don’ knock his vision,” Tullk advises him. “If any o’ us can make it happen, it’s Yondu ‘ere.”

Tellarune shrugs. “Well, I don’t put much stock in this whole funerary business. When yer dead, yer dead, an’ it don’t matter none what fancy parade they throw fer ya after. When I go, jus’ make sure my family gits my cut, an’ Kraglin knows his daddy died well.” Tellarune locks eyes with Tullk, the more reliable of the two, “Maybe check in on ‘em, here an’ there. Make sure they don’t want fer nothin’.”

“Sure thing, Rue,” Tullk promises. Yondu rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t comment. He didn’t understand _why_ the man chose to have children in such a harsh galaxy as theirs. Yondu thanked his lucky stars he wasn’t attracted to biologically-compatible people and the likelihood of becoming a father himself hovered somewhere between zero and negative one percent.

“How did he go, anyway? Cap’n Saarb?” Tellarune asks.

“Skrull got ‘im right ‘tween the eyes last raid,” Yondu replies. “Charlie’s goin’a be Cap’n now, an’ I hear tell he’s promotin’ Vyra as his first mate.”

“A woman?” Tellarune sounds surprised.

“Yeah, I know. Some o’ the other factions are all up in arms ‘bout it. Hell, Torbol near turned purple when he ‘eard, but none of ‘em will say shit,” Yondu smirks. “‘Leta would have their balls as cufflinks.”

“The wee lass is a terrifyin’ harpy,” Tullk nods in agreement.

Tellarune roughly elbows the careless man against his side. “Don’t let ‘er hear that,” he whispers.

“What? ‘S a complimen’,” Tullk says loudly, confused at Rue’s overabundance of caution. “Ye think a woman can be any less an’ still comman’ tha’ kinnae respec’? ‘Sides, I wouldn’ say no to her handlin’ my balls.”

“She’d crush ‘em an’ you know it,” Tellarune replies, looking around the immediate vicinity to ensure none of their superiors, particularly Captain Stakar Ogord, was nearby to overhear their conversation. Sure, the Ogords were long divorced, but he didn’t want to risk their captain’s wrath. Little did he know, the more immediate threat was quietly simmering on the opposite side of his friend.

“Tha’ s’pose ta be a turn-off?” Tullk asks.

Yondu delivers a right hook clear across Tullk’s face, knocking him into Rue and slamming both into the hard metal hull of the Starhawk.

“ _Anyways_ , when I make Cap’n, my crew’s goin’a be all men. Less distractions,” Yondu says conversationally, his anger evaporating quickly in a rush of hasty violence.

Tellarune stands, struggling to help the dazed Tullk to his feet. “Right, like they ain’t goin’a be checkin’ each other out.”

If Rue had learned nothing else, it was that lust always found a way.

“Ugly men,” Yondu clarifies, expression contemplative, “With truly hideous faces only their mother could love. An’ you two will be m’ first recruits. Congrat-u-lations.”

Tellarune crosses his arms as both he and Tullk glare at their future captain.

“Not ‘cause o’ yer looks, mind you. I ain’t that shallow,” Yondu assures them. When their wary glances fail to abate, he adds, “Yer _also_ purty damn loyal.”

 

* * *

 

**Present Day**

“I said yer mama was a cocksuckin’ slut who should’a swallowed ya when she had’a chance!” Taserface bellows directly into Peter’s small splotchy-red face.

Peter screams then, incoherent with rage, as he hurls himself towards his bully’s rotund belly, fists swinging. Taserface easily catches the child in one large paw, flinging him backwards towards the floor.

“Her loss. Now we all git a taste o’ baby Terran,” he threatens, placing a boot square on Peter’s chest to hold him down as the boy struggles under his partial weight. Taserface knows he can lean in, squish him now and be done with the squalling brat, but then that would be the end of him as well when Cap’n discovered his flattened pet. Still, it didn’t stop him from goading and only slightly-damaging the annoying child.

Across the room, Kraglin squints his eyes shut, shaking his head and breathing out audibly. Quill never learns. He _always_ rose to the bait, no matter how outmatched he was. As one of their favorite pastimes, the crew had quickly learned to exploit his triggers, which appeared to be in order: his dead mother, his music, and some guy named Davag Hafflebrau who had pretended to be his father back on Terra. Kraglin never took advantage of this knowledge himself, but he hadn’t helped Quill either during his many spats, hoping the boy would harden and eventually attain emotional equilibrium in the face of such sensitive subjects, like growing a callous over frequently rubbed skin… or failing that, at least learn to effectively apply the fighting lessons Cap’n had tried to instill in him during their frequent sparring matches.

When Peter limps over, wincing as he massages tender spots, he knows better than to complain, but Kraglin is still annoyed with him nonetheless.

“You’ll never be one o’ us. Yer way too soft,” he says, purposely prodding a bruise on his shoulder with two sharp fingers.

Peter shrinks from his pointed touch. “Why’re you always so mean to me, Kraglin? Friends are s’posed to help each other out,” Peter replies, rather pitifully.

“We ain’t friends. Cap’n ordered me to watch yer sorry hide an’ teach ya shit, but really, I’m just bidin’ my time ‘til he grows tired o’ ya an’ then it’s Terran stew. It’s just takin’ a li’l longer than anyone bet money on.” That was an understatement. The longest wager had been a month, and it was already going on nine. Kraglin had begun to suspect that Quill’s tenure was permanent… well, as permanent as anyone’s on the Eclector, given its high mortality rate.

Observing Peter’s wobbly bottom lip, Kraglin warns him, “Don’t you dare cry.”

The tears in Peter’s watery eyes waver but don’t fall.

Perhaps the boy is learning after all.

 

* * *

 

It had been a simple dance, one that Yondu and Tellarune had done a thousand times before. Upon completion of a job, they met up with the client to deliver the goods, received the second half of their payment as per their agreement, and continued on their way. Transaction done; everyone wins. On the rare occasion where there was trouble or the client tried to change terms at the drop… Well, neither was particularly good at peaceful conflict resolution, but the backing of a formidable Ravager Armada and Yondu’s arrow often made up the difference.

They still had the latter but now lacked the former.

Post-exile, most of their old contacts had dried up, forcing Yondu to cultivate new, less-reputable ones. It was difficult and often dangerous, but somehow, Yondu never thought it would end like this.

“Down!” Tellarune shouts as he crashes into Yondu, driving him to the ground. Yondu pushes him off and whistles, his arrow singeing a hole in his coat as it zips from the would-be assassin through his compatriots and finally tunneling through their treacherous client. They’re all dead before the first drops to the floor.

“Fuckin’ assholes… They never learn, eh Obfonteri?” Yondu says in the ensuing silence. “Obfonteri?”

His first mate is still on the ground, choking on his own blood, hand over abdomen trying to staunch a spreading pool of dark blue.

“Obfonteri!” Yondu grasps his free hand. “Rue! Hang in there. I’m goin’a git ya out’a here.”

Yondu tries to pull him up, but Tellarune stops him. “Kr- Kra-“ He coughs, trying to speak, but he’s already failing.

“Don’t you fuckin’ die on me!” He orders, but Rue’s breathing slows to a stop as his body becomes lax.

An hour later, Yondu emerges from his M-ship, bent under the weight of his first mate’s limp form. He pulls at Tellarune’s arm to drape across his shoulder while he holds him up by his waist. He gentley drops his drooping burden into the awaiting gurney. He’s in no rush; he already knows it’s too late.

There’s stomping, shouting, and Tullk is trying to slap Rue awake while a medic checks Yondu for any damage. Yondu smacks the man’s hands away. He’s covered in large swaths and splatters of blue blood, but none of it is his. Centaurians bleed dark red.

All the commotion fizzles into white noise when Yondu locks eyes with the dead man’s son across the docks. Kraglin’s face breaks into shifting expressions of disbelief and fear culminating in grief as he runs towards his father. Tullk catches him before he can make it, holding him as he crumbles.

 

* * *

 

Kraglin is sitting on the cot he shares with Peter, staring at a corner, when Yondu finds him later. Having no other families on board the Eclector, he doesn’t have much experience comforting grieving loved ones and suspects it might be beyond the scope of his limited emotional capabilities. After Quill had gotten over his initial fear, the boy had been inconsolable over the death of his mother for weeks and no amount of barking orders to stop snivelling and escalating threats of violence and cannibalism for disobedience had abated it. Still, he settles in next to Kraglin, a vague dread spreading across his chest.

Kraglin doesn’t acknowledge his presence, still engrossed in his staring contest with the wall.

Yondu clears his throat. No response. Remembering Quill’s early days, he supposes that’s better than the alternative.

“Yer father was a good man. Brave an’ loyal ‘til the end. You should be proud of ‘im, son,” he says. He hesitates fractionally then awkwardly pats the youth on the nearest shoulder before his hand finally comes to rest and gives it a little squeeze for reassurance.

“Right… So, I’m goin’a head on over an’ work on Quill’s pickpocketin’ again,” Kraglin finally responds with flat affect. “He’s gettin’ better, but he still don’t know how ta proper distract his mark when he lifts their stuff.”

“If ya need a coupla days–“ Yondu offers generously, carefully observing Kraglin’s demeanor.

“Won’t be necessary,” Kraglin interjects, shrugging his shoulder and leaning away to slip out from under Cap’n’s touch.

Yondu lets the interruption slide. Displays of sentiment obviously unsettle the boy. He can respect that. Yondu is impressed by the unflappability shown in someone so young. Unlike Quill, Kraglin is a born stone-cold killer, a true Ravager.

“Well… Funeral’s in two hours. We’re goin’a send yer daddy off right,” he says. With a last parting glance at the boy, he rises from his seat on the cot, straightens his collar, and leaves him to his duties.

Kraglin waits for Cap’n to walk away before roughly wiping his eyes on his sleeve, slumping off the cot, and reaching underneath to retrieve his footlocker. Pops is leaving on his final journey, and Kraglin has a parting gift for him.

 

* * *

 

There will be no bursts of color, no horns of Ogord for his dead first mate as he burns in blue flames spiraling out into the dark cosmos. It was the final fate awaiting every man who stood by the disgraced Captain Yondu Udonta of the Eclector.

In truth, Yondu knew Tellarune never much cared for lavish funerals and wouldn’t have minded the lack of pomp over his ashes, but he demanded more of a spectacle as both a fuck-you to Stakar’s edict as well as a proper farewell to an old friend. So here they stood, at the edge of the Cat’s Eye Nebula, the backdrop to Obfonteri’s funeral billowing clouds of swirling green and yellow gases surrounding a dark amber center. They may not have the fireworks of a hundred Ravager clans, but their first funeral in exile would not lack in color or scale.

Tellarune’s body had been washed, re-dressed, and laid out on a covered steel palette surrounded by the trappings of life, as if he was simply asleep. To Yondu’s eye, he still didn’t look right. He was too clean, too sterile, and his skin had a waxy appearance in unnatural repose.

Kraglin had stared at his father, numb and quiet during the eulogy, an old scarf knitted by his mother twisting in his fists as he weaves its loose loops into tight figure eights and back. He’s broken out of his trance-like state when the pallbearers move to lift the body and deliver him to the incinerator.

“Wait,” Kraglin says, softly. They pause as he approaches the corpse and wraps the scarf around his father’s neck. “It’ll be chilly out there,” he murmurs.

Tullk hugs him around the shoulders. “We’re sendin’ ‘im off warm enough, but I’m sure he’d ‘precia’e the sentimen’, lad.”

Kraglin doesn’t respond, watching his father engulfed in bright blue fire.

Later, sequestered in captain’s quarters, Tullk and Yondu share a bottle from the latter’s private stash. It had been a long time since they sat like this, as more-or-less equals. The captain’s mantle weighed heavy on his shoulders, and Yondu was tired of drinking alone. He simply wanted the company, or so he told himself. It had nothing to do with their shared sorrow over recent events, nor his own personal sense of guilt that had things been different, had they had the support of the other Ravager clans, perhaps his First Mate would be there still with a third glass. However, as the bottle drained towards empty, the lie wore thin, revealing the underlying truth.

“Rue deserved be’er,” Tullk ruminates, staring into his drink at his quivering reflection on its glossy liquid surface.

“Yeah, y’all do,” Yondu says, tired beyond his years.

Tullk doesn’t miss Yondu’s omission of himself in that statement.

“It weren’ yer faul’, ye know. Not Rue, not ‘em kids, none o’ it. He’d say the same.”

But he won’t. Tellarune Obfonteri will never say anything ever again. Everything he ever was or would have been is gone, committed to the void with barely a whisper, save the lonely tinny horn of the Eclector blaring over his stream of darkened ashes. Truth told, the only scrap of the man left was his son, his legacy, the boy Kraglin, and Yondu knew better than to expect forgiveness from that child.

“Yeah, well… Rue was always a fool. He should’a left back when. You should too, if ya know what’s good fer ya,” Yondu says, draining his shot in one gulp.

Tullk simply refills his glass.

“’Ere’s to fools, then,” he says, clinking his drink against Yondu’s motionless one.

He leans back into his seat, then downs the shot, dramatically smacking his lips after. A moment later, Yondu lifts his own, tossing it back quickly as well.

They sit in silence then, the only sounds the sloshing of liquor and dull ring of shifting glasses.

 

* * *

 

Peter slips away from the depressing affair, padding his way towards bed with soft steps so as not to alert anyone to his early escape. The first mate had never bullied him like some of the others had, and he was sad to see him dead. It reminded him of his own late mother, which made him weep during the ceremony despite Gef’s cruel pinches paradoxically meant to silence him. He honestly didn’t understand how Kraglin had kept it together in the wake of his father’s sudden death, and Peter had lost sight of him soon after Tellarune had been fed through the Eclector’s engine to begin the cremation process. Perhaps Kraglin was right, Peter wasn’t a Ravager and would never be one, if that sort of stoicism was a pre-requisite. Truth told he just wanted to curl up under some blankets with his music and have a good cry away from disapproving glances.

He places his hand on the door panel, activating its smooth slide open across oiled hinges. What he hears catches him off-guard. Stuttering gasps punctuated by pained swallows, the source of the muffled noise is a figure lying on his side across their shared bed.

If Peter had any respect for the privacy of others, he’d leave right then.

He approaches instead.

Kraglin tries to lie still, both hands over his mouth, biting into the flesh of his left palm to quiet himself and give him a physical pain to concentrate on, to drown out the emotional wounds of his father’s death, but the effort leaves his body shaky with grief.

“Kraglin… Are you okay?” Peter hesitates to ask as he approaches.

“G-git out’a here, Quill,” Kraglin stutters, trying to steady his quivering voice and imbue its tone with authority.

Peter never listened too well. It’s one of his many faults. He crawls into bed instead, lying apart from his friend. “It’s okay to be sad, Kraglin. He was your dad.”

Kraglin curls further into himself. “Who says I’m sad?” he insists rebelliously, but his voice cracks. “Fuckin’ asshole. Had to go an’ fuckin’ die like that. Fuck ‘im.”

“It’s okay to be mad, too,” Peter says.

Kraglin lashes out, “What do you know? Yer just a stupid brat.”

Peter rolls to the other side, facing away from Kraglin’s form. Sometimes, it was easier to talk to someone when you couldn’t see him. Perhaps that’s why people back on Terra prayed to God or confessed in darkened booths that hid the priest from view.

“When Mom got sick, I was really sad, but I was also angry at everyone. Why did _my_ mom have to get sick? Why did she have to leave me by myself?” Peter says, sniffling at the memory. “Anyway, she knew she was dying, so she made me this mixtape, and when I listen to it, it reminds me of her, and I don’t know, I feel less alone, like she’s still around, I guess? It sounds kind of stupid when I say it out loud.”

“Yer right, that does sound kind’a stupid,” Kraglin says, while reaching over to touch the sheath of his mother’s knife propped up next to his bed.

“Hey!”

“But I guess if it makes ya feel better an’ stops yer whinin’, maybe it’s worth havin’ ‘round,” Kraglin concedes, voice still raw.

Peter shifts to face Kraglin’s back. Plucking the headphones from around his neck, he holds them up and over Kraglin’s head, hovering just at the edge of his field of vision.

“…You want to listen?”

After a moment of deliberation, Kraglin acquiesces, lifting his head up to allow Pete to place the headphones over his ears. Peter rewinds to cue up _O-o-h Child_ and presses play. Kraglin doesn’t protest the selection, giving way to stifled sobs while Peter rubs his back.

 

* * *

 

“It’s mine now,” Retch taunts Peter the next morning, holding his Walkman over his head. “An’ if ya tell Cap’n… you know what we do to snitches?”

“Give it back or else!” Peter screeches, jumping up in an attempt to grab it, but Retch lifts his Walkman up further with every hop, keeping the device tantalizingly just out of reach of Pete’s frantic fingers.

“Or else what?” Retch challenges him, sneering at the diminuitive Ravager. “What’s a baby Terran like you goin’a do ‘bou–“

His jibe is cut short as a pipe strikes the back of his head. Peter catches his Walkman and quickly sidesteps Retch as he collapses to the ground, revealing his savior to be Kraglin.

Peter looks flabbergasted as his new ally angrily kicks Retch’s unconscious body in the ribs.

When he looks up, Kraglin misinterprets Peter’s surprise as concern. “I didn’t kill ‘im or nothin’. He’ll be fine.”

“Won’t you get in trouble when he wakes up?”

“Naw, he won’t know what hit ‘im so long as ya don’t snitch on me,” Kraglin says, stepping over Retch’s body and grabbing a stunned Pete’s hand to lead them both away from the scene of the crime. “He won’t barely ‘member nothin’, so maybe he’ll figure it was you an’ think twice next time. It ain’t like he’ll complain to nobody. Imagine bein’ taken out by the ‘baby Terran.’ Too embarrassin’.”

“Did you help me because of last night?” Peter asks, trying to keep up with Kraglin’s pace.

“Don’t know what yer talkin’ ‘bout. Nothin’ happened,” Kraglin replies stiffly.

“When you were crying–“

“Again. I don’t know what yer goin’ on ‘bout. We Ravagers don’t cry.”

“What’re you talking about? You cried yesterday when…” Peter doesn’t finish, not wanting to remind Kraglin of his father’s death.

Kraglin stops. He rubs the line of his misty eyes and sighs, “I can’t stress this enough: Ravagers don’t cry, an’ we don’t snitch neither. Yer one o’ us now, Pete. Best chu start actin’ like it.”

Peter perks up. “Hey, you called me by my first name.”

“Don’t let it git to yer head. Yer still a pain in my ass, an’ one day, I’m goin’a eat chu,” Kraglin barks out. Peter’s face falls, and he takes a sudden interest in his boots as he rolls heel-toe.

Kraglin amends, “Prob’ly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I wrote Tellarune dying in the scene after he confronts Kraglin about his attempt on Yondu’s life, but then I realized a part of me wanted Kraglin’s sexuality to be accepted by his wayward father, even if it would be nearly impossible to talk about openly, given the general environment (the Ravagers) and their rather-strained relationship.


	7. Poorly-Kept Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now older, Peter and Kraglin go to a bar where Peter discovers the truth of Kraglin’s sexuality. Peter obviously inherited his faulty gaydar from Yondu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this chapter, I’m going to assume that sexual dimorphism in space is varied, so women don’t always sport the traditionally feminine look. Also, this is where the “light homophobia” tag comes into play, in case you’re wondering. Peter gets over it pretty quickly by the end of this chapter and fully embraces Kraglin’s sexuality in the next chapter, much to Kraglin’s escalating frustration. On a related note, for those who have read my other fics, does anyone miss Matchmaker Peter? Because Kraglin sure doesn’t.

The first time Kraglin thinks he has a chance with Yondu, he’s sixteen, an adult by Ravager standards. Cap’n gathers the crew out for a night on Contraxia, but when Kraglin leaves behind a clingy Peter to join the ranks of the outgoing party, Cap’n pulls him aside, questioning his age and eligibility for the brothels.

“The lad’s sixteen, Cap’n,” Tullk had vouched for him. “It’s his firs’ shore leave as an adul’.”

“Ya sure?” Yondu had asked, looking closely at his clean-shaven baby face. Kraglin was tall, but he had yet to fill out to his admittedly-lean adult proportions. “The boy looks barely 14.”

“Aye Cap’n. The lad was 14 two years pass when we burned his daddy, may he res’ in peace.”

“Well, he’s still on duty tonight. He needs ta watch Quill,” Yondu had reasoned. “You can come next time, kid.”

_Kid?_

Kraglin resolves to stop shaving in an effort to look older, but he keeps his facial hair trimmed when it grows in wispy and patchy, betraying his mid-adolescence.

He even invests in some tattoos.

“You sure this is what you want, kid?” The tattoo artist on some backwoods satellite asks him, examining the reference photo he’d been handed.

“Ain’t a kid, an’ yeah. I’ve wanted this design fer years,” Kraglin confirms.

“Uh huh…” he addresses the older man accompanying the boy, “And you’re his father?”

“I signed yer damn waiver, didn’ae?” Tullk replies. He hadn’t so much signed his name as drawn a large X on the dotted line, but what’s good enough for pirate contracts should be good enough for legal documentation of parental consent, he surmises.

The tattoo artist looks dubious. “It’s just that… you two look and sound nothing alike.”

“He takes aft’a his Ma, who raised him since he was a wee boyal, but he’s always wante’ some ink jus’ like his daddy. Ain’ that righ’ son?” Tullk lies smoothly, patting Kraglin heartily on the back.

Kraglin rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in irritation. “Look, are we doin’ this or do I have’ta take my money down to yer competition?”

“We ain’t leavin’, lad. He’ll do it. Won’ ye?” Tullk tells the man, flashing him a dangerously-deranged smile.

His transformation complete, Kraglin attempts to pick up Yondu on their next jaunt to the bars. However, nerves and inexperience drive him to overindulge. He is much too drunk to effectively proposition the oblivious Captain, and his attempt to buy him a drink results in him purchasing a round for the entire assembled crew. Watching his long-time crush stumble into a back room with another man in tow, Kraglin rests his head in his hands, defeated.

He hears the heavy clink of glass on the copper bar top. Looking up from his depressed slump, he locks eyes with a large frosty pint inches from his face.

“Ye look like an orloni stole yer las’ credi’. Wha’s go’ ye so down, lad?” Tullk asks kindly from above.

Kraglin doesn’t say anything, sliding the offered drink closer to drown out his romantic disappointments.

Though he hones and improves his general technique over time, Kraglin doesn’t fare much better with Yondu on subsequent trips. Unable to entice him to his bed, each failure adds credence to his sneaking suspicion that perhaps he will never be grown enough to capture Captain’s notice.

Doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying any time soon.

_Persistence is key._

 

* * *

 

**Five Years Later**

“C’mon man, you can’t just leave me behind on the Eclector again,” Peter wheedles his mentor, keeping pace with Yondu as both make their way to the M-ship docks. “I’m sixteen, so that means I’m old enough.”

“All right, Quill,” Yondu agrees. “You can go, but I’ve got my eye on ya. Ya fuck up, an’ it’s straight back to the Eclector.”

“You? No offense old man, but you’ll cramp my style,” Peter complains as they approach the _Warbird_. “Can’t I go with Kraglin instead?”

“No.” Kraglin calls out from his own nearby M-ship. It’s not that he doesn’t like spending time with Pete on the Eclector or during missions and supply runs, but shore leave is his limited time to let loose and get laid, and he can’t do that with the Terran brat tagging along. As prior experience has taught him time and again, Pete’s presence is a hindrance to that main directive.

“Fine, but you hafta do what Kraglin says.” Yondu is happy to pawn his boy off on someone else, anyone else really. He spins Pete around, pointing him towards Kraglin’s vessel and swatting him forward.

Kraglin can feel his chances of a successful night out plummet drastically.

_Dammit._

Peter Quill, cockblocker extraordinaire, ambles up to him.

“All right! Bar buddies!” He practically vibrates with excitement while Kraglin covers his face in exasperation. “C’mon… Bring it in,” Peter says as he throws an arm over Kraglin’s haunched shoulders and attempts to pull the other one round into an awkward hug.

Kraglin plants a hand in his face, pushing him back to hold him at arms length. “We need’a establish some rules fer this outin’. Rule #1: No hugs. We ain’t fuckin’ an’ neither one o’ us is dyin’ so none o’ that. Rule #2: Don’t accept drinks from nobody ‘less ya see the barkeep pour it. And Rule #3: I can add more rules as I see fit. Clear?”

“I got it, Kraglin. Now let’s go paint the town red! Just between you and me, I’ve been reading up on how to pick up chicks, and I think I can get us both laid,” Peter whispers conspiratorially from behind a cupped hand.

“Rule #4: Don’t embarrass me.”

 

* * *

 

The unexpected upside of being Peter’s chaperone for the night is that while he’s fairly effective man-repellent, he apparently attracts the elusive Captain Udonta to their table.

“Are you going to stick around us all night, Yondu?” Peter complains. “You’re scaring off the ladies.”

If only Peter could learn to appreciate the view.

“I ain’t followin’ ya. You jus’ happen to always be where I’m goin’,” Yondu counters, taking a nip from his second drink. His pace is a trickle compared to his usual consumption.

“Why don’ ye lads gi’ goin’. The Rusty Bucke’ is more fer us ol’ timers anyway,” Tullk says before guzzling his fourth.

When the two leave, albeit Kraglin more reluctantly, Yondu becomes disgruntled and fidgety.

“Quill’ll be fine, Cap’n,” Tullk orders him another drink to take the edge of parental worry off.

“Who says I’m worried ‘bout Quill?” Yondu states calmly, but he drains the offered drink quickly and stares longingly at the door.

Tullk orders another before he can stand. “Why, I ‘member Kraglin’s firs’ nigh’ out. I was… concerned fer the lad’s wellbein’, but he’s go’ a good head on his shoulders. I gi’ tha’ Quill ain’ go’ much sense, but Kraglin’ll look after the lad.” The trace of pride in his voice is unmistakable.

“Kraglin ain’t even yer kid.”

“Neither is Quill yers or so ye claim, Cap’n.”

Yondu can’t disagree, so he just glares at the other man over the rim of his new drink.

Tullk chooses to ignore the warning. He lifts up his mug. “To bein’ two single non-daddies with no ‘sponsibilities tonigh’,” he toasts.

Yondu nearly chokes on his mouthful, kicking Tullk hard in the leg as he hacks into his fist.

 

* * *

 

They end up in a small bar called Lusty Luna’s. The name and pink neon sign is a siren call for Peter.

 _This place is probably crawling with horny girls,_ Peter had stated, absolutely giddy at the prospect. _Um, Pete,_ Kraglin had tried to tell him when he noticed the golden ring indicating a gay establishment in the corner of the front window. Peter had cut him off, _Dammit, Kraglin, quit bein’ such a wet blanket. Can’t you just let me choose one bar? This’ll be the place where we get laid. I’m sure of it._ Kraglin had simply narrowed his eyes and kept quiet, following the boy inside. If he wanted to learn the hard way, that was on him.

Presently, Peter lets out a prolonged sigh and drops heavily into his seat at the bar next to Kraglin, head hung low.

“Struck out again?” Kraglin asks, relishing in the boy’s failure.

“I don’t understand the problem. I’ve approached like twenty women, and none of them are interested,” Peter explains. “Half of them seem downright insulted in fact.”

Taking pity on the boy, Kraglin says, “Well, Pete, I think these women ain’t interested on account’a–“

“No shit, Sherlock,” Peter interrupts. He grabs his own shoulders, pulling his elbows forward while dropping his head back to stretch in frustration.  “I just wish I knew the right combination o’ words–”

“There ain’t none, Pete!” Kraglin states firmly, exasperated. The novelty of Pete’s ignorance is starting to grow stale. “What’re the right words that’ll unlock yer inner desire fer dick?”

“Um… I think maybe you’ve had enough, Kraglin.” Peter says, reaching over to try to extract the drink from Kraglin’s possession.

“Ya touch my drink, I bite,” Kraglin warns. Peter withdraws, unsure of whether the man is serious but not wanting to risk it. “’Sides, yer still on yer first. Light-weight.”

“It’s… not great-tasting. I’m using it more as a prop anyway,” Peter admits. “This night is just not turning out like I thought it would.”

Feeling generous, Kraglin offers, “If yer done with the bars, we could do somethin’ else. Now that Cap’n’s deemed ya an adult, want we should git inked to commemorate the occasion? I think I saw one ‘round the corner that looked decent enough,” It’s Peter’s first night of probable adulthood, and as his long-time keeper and de facto older brother, Kraglin is duty-bound to ensure he gets the full experience, regrets and all.

“No thanks. I don’t think I’m a tattoo type of guy. I can’t think of anything that I would want on my skin forever,” Peter says, still swirling his first drink with flick of his wrist. It’s warm now, which didn’t improve its taste in the slightest. “No offence and all, but do you still _like_ the tribal tattoos you got at my age?”

 “Hey… ya used ta think it were purty awesome,” Kraglin points out, insulted.

“Yeah, when I was like 11, but now that I’m 16… Dude, you aren’t even Easik. Getting an Easik tribal tattoo seems in poor taste,” Peter comments, poking the boxy geometric swirls trailing down the other man’s neck. Kraglin attempts to bat away his hand, but misses the mark, lightly grazing his ear.

Kraglin had never told Pete about his siblings before him, and he’s not about to start now.

“Yeah, well yer… _face_ seems in poor taste,” Kraglin slurs. It’s not his best work, but he’s nine drinks in on a twelve-drink type of night.

“Ouch. Good one,” Peter deadpans.

“Shut the fuck up, Pete.”

They are interrupted by a scruffy Xandarian on the other side of Kraglin opposite Peter.

“Excuse me, beautiful, but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation,” he says as he edges in closer. “I happen to like your tats, been staring at ‘em all night.”

“Is that so?” Kraglin replies. He leans towards the newcomer with a tipsy smile. The man is older, shorter, and judging by his exposed arms, reasonably muscular. Just Kraglin’s type.

“Yeah… I think they’re damn sexy. Perhaps you can show me how far down they go,” the man says, reaching over to lightly stroke from Kraglin’s ear to his chest. “The name’s Yuril, by the by, and this here’s my friend Trax.”

A Krylorian behind Yuril approaches to engage the duo.

“Kraglin,” Kraglin introduces himself.

“Nice to meet you, Kraglin. My buddy Yuril here’s really into spacers. Got himself a ship out back,” Trax says. He looks beyond Kraglin at Peter observing the scene with an amused expression. “You going to introduce your friend there?”

“This’s Quill. Just showin’ him around,” Kraglin drapes a protective arm around the boy, squeezing him close to knuckle the top of his head, messing up his carefully-coiffed hair.

“Ow! Stop it, Kraglin. Get off’a me!” Peter tries to duck away, struggling to escape the man’s practiced hold.

“’S the _kid’s_ first time in a bar.” Kraglin is friendly enough, but he keeps his arm across Pete’s shoulders, even after he releases him from the impromptu headlock. The message is clear: Pete’s off-limits.

Oblivious, Peter shrugs off the contact, pouting as he tries and fails to straighten his hair. “Thanks a lot, you bastard. It took me 45 minutes to get my hair just right, and you ruined it in 30 seconds.”

“You’ll live,” Kraglin says, but he’s focused on Yuril, who’s touching his knee.

“How about me and you get out of here and go some place more private to get to know each other?” Yuril suggests coyly, his hand slipping towards Kraglin’s inner thigh.

Gazing at the other man, Kraglin really wants to say yes, and normally he would, but–

“Maybe next time, sweetheart. I’m on babysittin’ duty tonight,” he says, indicating Pete with a crooked thumb in the boy’s direction. Peter doesn’t respond to the subtle jab at his age, too preoccupied with trying to keep a straight face in the wake of hilarious circumstance.

Yuril looks as disappointed as Kraglin feels.

When the two men leave, Kraglin faces his twitchy companion. “Wha’s so funny?”

“Hate to break it to you, Kraglin, but I’m pretty sure Yuril is a man,” Pete finally says, through muffled snickering. Kraglin must be way drunker than Peter thought to miss the obvious signs.

“No, really?” Kraglin feigns surprise at Peter’s insightful deduction. “What gave it away? Were it the facial stubble, the fact that his buddy called him ‘he,’ or the ridiculously large bulge in his pants? Between you an’ me, I think that last one might be a sock of coins to impress me, but really, stuffin’ jus’ sets up yer partners fer disappointment. Jus’ work with what ya got.”

Kraglin takes a swig of his drink. Pete eyes him with no small measure of confusion. Watching the slight bob of Kraglin’s throat while tapping the side of his own glass to gather his thoughts, Peter finally hazards a question, “But… aren’t you a man?”

Perhaps he’s been mistaken all these years and what he assumed was Kraglin’s dick from glances in the communal showers is actually an ovipositor. It’s not like he ever examined it in great detail. Not after Kraglin had cuffed him on the back of the head and told him to “Stop starin’” the first time he had caught a glimpse of the confusingly prehensile appendage as it squirmed away from the water pressure.

“If yer askin’ whether I’ve reached my age of majority, then yeah, I ain’t a boy no more,” Kraglin clarifies with an off-handed shrug. He may be young, but he’s a grown man capable of making his own decisions about his sex life. Now, if only he could figure out a way to lure a certain blue asshole to his bed… Perhaps a trail of colorful trinkets, each more glittery than the last, leading from Cap’n’s quarters to a private storage closet where Kraglin awaits, wearing nothing but the shiniest stars-damned codpiece this side of Nova space. Maybe then, Cap’n would take the hint.

“So, you’re both men?” Peter reiterates, interrupting his daydream.

“That a problem, Pete?” Kraglin says, fixing the younger man with a sharp glare, daring him to comment further.

“No… no, just didn’t know is all.” He holds up his hands, palms out, in preemptive appeasement of Kraglin’s wrath. Kraglin tended to get a bit stabby in response to perceived slights, more so when inebriated. While Kraglin never found reason to visit pointy retribution upon his person, Peter supposes there is a first time for everything. He would rather avoid the awkward trip to med bay and requisite lies to cover up his friend’s involvement.

Plus, then they’d have to make up.

Huh.

Would Kraglin be relieved or offended if Peter didn’t try to hug him this time?

The tense silence stretches between them, taut as a bowstring pulled to snapping.

Peter is the first to break it. “So, we’ve seen each other naked. A lot,” he states nervously. “Do you…”

Kraglin wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Hell no, Pete. Yer like my little brother or a bad unit chit I can’t shake. Just ‘cause I’m into men don’t mean I’m into all men. Fuck, I’ve got _standards_ , unlike some people I know.”

“Hey, Liira was super hot!” Peter protests.

“Hot ain’ everythin’. She had the personality of an ornery bilgesnipe sufferin’ from a toothache an’ yer a careless li’l fucker. You would’a been dead within the week.”

“Yeah, but what a week it would’ve been,” Peter murmurs dreamily, looking off into the distance to contemplate shapely forms and missed opportunities.

“Stupid _and_ suicidal. Yer quite the catch. You’ll make some psycho chick real happy one day… for ‘xactly one day ‘fore she stabs ya through the eye fer lookin’ at another woman’s tits. Hell, I’m surprised yer still alive. Must be immortal.”

“Well, you’re going to end up with an old, ugly son of a bitch. But at least he’ll have _personality_ and no other options,” Peter counters.

“One can only hope,” Kraglin smirks. “That’s livin’ the dream, Pete. Livin’ the dream.”

Pete jostles him in his spindly ribs. Kraglin elbows him right back, and just like that, things are back to normal.

“Admit it, you just like being the pretty one,” Peter says, smiling brightly.

Stifling his own wide grin, Kraglin replies, “It has its perks… Now, let’s git chu somethin’ more to yer tastes. You’ll prob’ly like the Sparkle-Glitter Pony Explosion. ‘S too girly fer most o’ the women here, but it’s sweet.”

“Fuck you, Kraglin.”

Later, Peter doesn’t know whether he’s more upset that Kraglin actually ordered it for him despite his protests or that he was right.

“Dammit,” Peter says as he sips his now-favorite drink through a pink curly straw molded into the shape of an ejaculating dick.

“They’ll let ya keep the straw as a souvenir.”

Pete flips him off as he slurps the last dregs from the bottom of his glass.

“Want another?” Kraglin manages with a straight face.

“…Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ian McKellen once said that coming out is a process, and you don’t come out just once but many times to many different people.


	8. It's Raining Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter tries to be supportive. Kraglin wishes he’d just stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Peter tries to set Kraglin up with a bunch of one-night stands, but he’s hilariously bad at vetting them. The last man he inadvertently picks for Kraglin is an ex-gay proselytizer (basically, a gay man who believes in conversation therapy). Nothing happens, but if you want to skip it… Kraglin pretty much just leaves and puts a stop to Peter’s shenanigans, but the experience propels him to take a chance on Yondu, because really, what does he have to lose… besides everything. 
> 
> As for the inspiration for Peter’s exceedingly poor abilities, I come from a large, close-knit extended family. One of my aunts is infamous in my family for being exceptionally bad at matchmaking with also the worst gaydar imaginable. She has tried to set up her mild-mannered brother with a person he described as a “bitchy little person.” She has tried to set up her younger sister with a string of painfully-obvious femme gay men and her divorced older sister with a religious fundamentalist who wanted her to sign over all her property to him and become wife #1 of 4 (in the USA where it isn’t legal). I imagine Peter, with his shitty dating history in canon, is also terrible, and I love writing him as being an extremely earnest, yet equally ineffective, matchmaker.

“Rise an’ shine, Petey,” Kraglin says the next morning as he shakes the boy awake.

“Did… did someone throw up in my mouth and beat me about the ears last night?” Peter whimpers, pulling a blanket over his head to block out the blindingly bright light of artificial sunrise.

“Yeah, ya got’a be careful with ‘em mixed drinks. The sweet hides one helluva alcohol content.” Kraglin yanks the blankets down and off in one tug, stripping Pete of his protective coverings. He curls into himself and stuffs a pillow over his head.

 _Now he tells me,_ Peter thinks through a pounding headache. “Five more minutes,” he moans instead, his plea largely muffled from under the pillow.

“We’re due to the bridge in twelve.” Kraglin’s voice betrays amusement as he latches onto one leg to haul Pete out of their shared bed.

“Fuckin’ stars! I’m up! I’m awake now, you fucker!” Peter protests, weakly trying to kick him in retaliation. He is mildly unsatisfied when he only manages light contact with his target.

“Then put on some pants an’ le’s go,” Kraglin throws Pete’s discarded leathers at him and kicks his boots over. “I don’t fancy scrub duty if ya make us late.”

“Crawl up your own asshole and die,” Peter mumbles as he pulls his shirt on inside out and backwards.

“Maybe after first shift.” Kraglin checks his chronometer. “Now, less talkin’, more walkin’.”

Later he breathes a sigh of relief when they arrive with only two minutes to spare after practically dragging a half-dead Pete to their station.

“Quill looks like shit,” Cap’n comments to Kraglin during a lull in their shift, when Peter takes the opportunity to crumple small into his seat, his face pallid and slightly clammy.

“Pete’s still learnin’ his limits,” Kraglin explains. If he feels slightly guilty about his friend’s condition, it doesn’t show.

“Price of fun an’ all that,” Yondu speculates, gazing at his drooping boy.

Kraglin recognizes a golden opportunity.

“Say, next shore leave, want’a come along with us?” He offers, crafting an excuse to spend off-duty hours with his Cap’n using the only reliable bait at hand. “Pete can be awful heavy to carry back when he can’t walk. Might be easier with a second set o’ shoulders.”

Yondu looks offended. “Me? Carry Quill? Kid drinks hisself into a stupor, he can sleep it off at the tavern an’ find someone else to fly his sorry ass back to the Eclector in the mornin’.”

Kraglin is disappointed that his ploy proves ineffective.

…Until their next shore leave.

“Are you following us?” Peter asks Yondu, eyes narrowed at the older man.

“Fer yer information, I was invited ‘cause ya can’t hold yer liquor, boy,” Yondu says from the other side of Kraglin.

“Kragliiiiin,” Peter whines, “I can’t believe you invited the boss-man when we’re supposed to be out living it up.”

“It’s yer own fault. I damn near threw out my back draggin’ ya back last time. An’ ya slobbered all over the front o’ my leathers,” Kraglin admonishes him. Turning to Yondu, he asks, “What’re ya drinkin’, Cap’n?”

“Gin,” Yondu responds, but he’s glaring pointedly at Peter.

Unnoticed, Kraglin practically melts.

“Two gin up. An’ one Sparkle-Glitter Pony Explosion,” Kraglin tells the barkeep.

“One what now?” Yondu draws back, perplexed, while Peter blushes and buries his face in his hands.

 

* * *

 

“…an’ then, after that whole long speech ‘bout bein’ professional an’ not rilin’ up the other clans an’ all that frivolous bullshit, yer daddy clocks the fat fuck in the face with a bottle thrown clear cross the room.” Yondu plants an arm on one knee as he doubles over in laughter.

“What’d Cap’n Pohl do to deserve that?” Kraglin asks, cheek resting on propped hand and gazing longingly at Yondu.

“Ya know, I don’t right recall,” Yondu replies, examining the bottom of his glass with more intensity than it deserved. “But he had it comin’. Obfonteri always had a good head on his shoulders.”

Kraglin is on the cusp of making a potentially-catastrophic double entendre about how he can give Yondu some ‘good head’ when Peter’s stool screeches, capturing the attention of both men.

“I got’a take a piss. Be right back,” Peter slurs, sliding off his seat to swerve towards the bathroom.

“Quill’s lookin’ all righ’. He’s walkin’ only a li’l funny an’ he barely hit nothin’ on the way to the bogs. He’ll prob’ly be fine,” Yondu comments, in a rare admittance of open concern for the boy.

“Yeah… I could send ‘im back to the Eclector,” Kraglin hesitates to suggest. He nervously taps his fingers in a wave down the sides of his glass. “The night’s still young, an’ Tullk or Oblo’ll prob’ly be willin’ ta take ‘im back to sleep it off, if ya maybe want’a git out’a here, Cap’n.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Yondu agrees.

His stomach fluttering wildly, Kraglin positively beams as he places a bold arm around the other man’s shoulders in natural familiarity. His calm exterior belies his rising excitement. He can’t believe it’s finally happening after all these years. When Yondu leans in, Kraglin mirrors his motion, eyes laser-focused on approaching blue lips.

“That Krylorian in the corner has been makin’ eyes at me all night, an’ I’d like ta take ‘im out back fer a fuck,” Yondu confides quietly to Kraglin before the latter can make a fatal miscalculation.

Kraglin nearly stumbles into Yondu’s lap as his head abruptly changes trajectory, dipping low to abort the clearly-unwanted kiss. His prior elation deflates, withering to nothing in the span of a single sentence. He drops his arm, now wooden and heavy, in dejection. Oblivious to his inner turmoil, Yondu gives Kraglin a parting wink and friendly pat on the shoulder before making his way across the establishment towards his likely hook-up for the night.

Kraglin is still wilting into his drink, shoulders slumped and eyes lowered, when Peter returns.

“Hey, ya managed to shake off Yondu,” Peter observes cheerfully. “Now that he’s gone, we can finally get to work on gittin’ you laid.”

Kraglin sighs. “Yeah sure, Pete, whatever ya want’a do.”

“You don’t have to sound so down ‘bout it,” Peter says, lightly punching his shoulder in easy comradery. “I’ll get you some prime Grade-A man-meat, I promise. I’ve been reading up on how to wingman for your gay friends, an’ not to brag, but I’m totally an expert now.”

“Uh huh.” Kraglin is barely paying attention to Pete’s proposition.

Noticing his friend’s despondent demeanor, Peter skips ahead in his mental game plan to Step 3: Beef up Kraglin’s flagging confidence. “Hey now… Ya know Kraglin, you are so fuckin’ amazin’, an’ any guy would be lucky to be with ya. Fuck, if I wasn’ as straight as Yondu’s arrow, I’d want me a piece o’ that,” he lies, leaning back from the bar to explicitly check out Kraglin’s nonexistent ass in mock appreciation.

“Cap’n’s arrow ain’t ‘xactly straight,” Kraglin points out, one corner of his mouth threatening to upturn into a smile.

“Whatever. Point is if a guy’s not interested in you, they’re stupid and possibly blind. Now, let’s go git you some dick or ass or… I don’t know which one you prefer.”

“Well actually–“

“Not important!” Peter interrupts him quickly, preferring to maintain some semblance of mystery in their bromance. “The important part is I’m goin’a get chu laid ‘cause you deserve it, buddy. You deserve so much dick or ass, you’ll need at least ten showers to feel clean again.”

“Um… I don’t right think that’s what I want.”

“You do, Kraglin. Trust me.”

Perhaps Peter was right, and he could bury his disappointment over Yondu by burying deep into some stranger, chasing his orgasm instead of the elusive Captain and pretending it was enough, that it had been what he really wanted all along. It had worked before, at least temporarily.

“Alrigh’, Petey. We’ll do it yer way, just this once,” Kraglin relents.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Kraglin!” Peter sloshes his neon violet drink, a Frilly Nipple, across the bar top as he waves Kraglin over to meet a tall thin man with wavy dark hair gleaming in the low light of the next bar they patronize. “This ‘ere’s Calaar. He owns his own small business providin’ necessary services to a select clientele.”

“So are ya a drug dealer or a pimp?” Kraglin asks point-blank as he settles down into the chair next to Calaar. There’s no need to beat around the bush. He’s not picky, desiring only a half-way decent conversationalist with functional genitalia. Afterall, he’s looking to get laid, not married.

“Kraglin!” Peter exclaims, surprised at his discourtesy towards their new friend.

“We prefer the term Street Pharmacist,” Calaar responds, running his fingers over Kraglin’s knuckles. “And Peter tells me you’re a space pirate.”

“We prefer the term Ravager.” Kraglin smiles coyly. The man is attractive, in a pretty-boy sort of way. For an ostensibly-straight kid, Peter sure knows how to pick them.

“So, how do you guys want to do this?” Calaar inquires with a greasy grin.

“Do what?” Kraglin asks before he indulges in a swig of his drink.

“I was thinking you, your ‘brother,’ and I could get a hotel and some Sulta and really make a night of it.”

“…What?” Peter squeaks while Kraglin spits out his drink, coughing through the burn into his fist, his other hand still being molested by the suddenly-unattractive man.

Unaware of the sudden change in his companions’ demeanor, Calaar continues blithely, “As for scenarios… Two teachers disciplining a student? Burglar coming across an established couple? Or does one of you just like to watch?”

He turns an appraising eye to Peter. “That reminds me… Hey sweet stuff, you’re not underage, right? You look a li’l young, and Calaar don’t do that shit, so I’m gonna have to check ID if you want to ride this rocket.” Calaar indicates his lap with a flourish of hands and subtle thrust of his pelvis.

Peter’s mouth falls open, capable of only a small strangled noise from the back of his throat.

“I – I think we’re done ‘ere,” Kraglin sputters, still trying to clear his airway. He shakes off Calaar’s touch and hooks Peter’s arm on his way out.

Calaar calls after them, “If you change your mind–“

“We won’t!” Kraglin shouts over his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

“Florun, this is my friend, Kraglin, who would very much like to get to know you. I also want to be 100% clear that I am not a part of this nor am I looking to be involved in any raunchy sex you may have later tonight,” Peter declares as he introduces the next man.

“Peter,” Kraglin groans, covering his face with one hand in embarrassment.

“Just making sure you understand that before you proceed,” Peter insists.

“Um… okay,” Florun says. At his verbal confirmation accepting the terms of casual sex with Kraglin and Kraglin alone, Peter slips away, leaving the two lovebirds to work out any further details amongst themselves.

“I’m really sorry ‘bout that. Peter is… well, he’s tryin’a be supportive in the most annoyin’ way possible,” Kraglin explains.

“No, no, I get it,” Florun assures him. “Sometimes, the young can be… overeager.”

“That’s an understatement, if ever I ‘eard one.”

“So, your friend, Peter… He was telling me about you and your crew, and I think I’d like to enlist,” Florun says.

Kraglin straightens up from his slump. “Really? We’re always lookin’ fer some good men. Can ya shoot?” He looks at the potential new recruit, visually sizing him up for suitability as a Ravager.

“Yeah, I’m okay, but I’m actually more interested in your other proclivities,” Florun’s voice drops low, almost sultry.

Kraglin attitude turns icy, as he considers ducking out with Peter to go home, far away from this incorrigible asshole. “We ain’t pedophiles, if that’s what yer gettin’ at?”

Florun looks surprised as he rushes to correct Kraglin’s assumption. “I’m not either. What I was referring to is that your Captain threatens to let you lot eat him on a fairly regular basis–“

“Yeah… we ain’t goin’a let chu eat the kid, neither,” he snaps back.

Florun holds up his hands in appeasement. “No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. I want to _be_ eaten,” he clarifies earnestly.

“…What?” Kraglin draws back from the other man in befuddlement. That was a first.

Florun stares at him unblinking, eyes wide and disturbingly tinged with arousal. “The chewing, the consuming, being part of someone forever. Romantic, isn’t it? I’ve always–“

Kraglin abruptly vacates his chair. Backing away from the other man quickly, he makes his way towards the exit, grabbing a protesting Pete on the way out.

 

* * *

 

Patronizing his sixth bar by the end of the night, Kraglin has had enough. Having banished Peter to the opposite side of the establishment with explicit instructions to not approach or otherwise disturb him for at least thirty minutes, he sits at the bar, savoring a well-earned drink to calm his nerves at the close of a remarkably disastrous evening.

“Hello, Kraglin is it?” A Xandarian inquires politely as he takes the open seat next to Kraglin.

“… Who’s askin’?” Kraglin responds warily, leaning away from the newcomer.

“Your brother over there said you were looking for some company tonight.” The man crooks his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Peter in the corner, enthusiastically waving at the two of them. Kraglin sinks into his chair. He can feel another headache brewing between his eyes. The man seems normal enough, but Peter’s selections always revealed their unique brand of horrible and unnerving with time. He just had to suss out what fresh hell the kid had rained upon him.

Kraglin sighs, “Kid ain’t my brother. He’s just a pain in my ass.”

“Well… Can I buy you a drink?”

“If you try an’ slip me some roofies, I’ll cut out yer liver an’ feed it to ya,” Kraglin threatens.

“You can watch the bartender pour it out. I won’t even touch it.”

“It could be in the glass.”

“I’ll take the first sip if it’d make you more comfortable,” he responds without skipping a beat. “Man, you sure are mighty skittish.”

“Le’s jus’ say, it’s been one o’ those nights,” Kraglin states, suddenly exhausted.

“I hear ya,” the Xandarian commiserates. “I guess you can’t be too careful around these parts. There’re some real freaks on this satellite.”

Against all odds, Peter has pulled a seemingly acceptable person for him. Kraglin is immediately suspicious. “Okay, I give up, what’s wrong with you? Are ya a pedophile? Have a vore fetish? Are actually a Skrull wearin’ a skin suit? What?”

Surprised and slightly alarmed, the man confirms, “I am not any of those things.”

“Are you attracted to men?”

“Yes, I–”

“Thank fuck, a normal person!” Kraglin exclaims in relief.

“– was attracted to men, but through the power of the Almighty Ron and strong psychotropic substances, I was able to overcome my ailment and now live in a happy healthy relationship with a biologically compatible spouse and two perfect children. There are barely any side effects that can’t be treated with uppers and the occasional two-hour crying session,” the other man says, right eye slightly twitching. “I can help you achieve the same, brother.”

“…”

 

* * *

 

“That’s it, Peter. No more; I’m serious. That last one tried ta recruit me into their psycho cult,” Kraglin rages at Pete as he frog-marches him out of their last bar for the night.

“How could that one have gone wrong? He looked so normal and seemed super excited when I asked him if he was up for some hot, semi-anonymous, man-on-man lovin’,” Peter elaborates on his foolproof system to get his friend laid.

Kraglin stops, giving him a dry look.

“What?” He is genuinely confused.

Kraglin inhales sharply in frustration, covering his face with one palm. If he could survive Pete’s antics with his sanity and most of his pride intact, he can survive simple, uncomplicated rejection. Nothing can be as humiliating as this charade. He might as well go after the blue asshole of his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As for why everyone Peter picked up for Kraglin happened to be a freak? Imagine a 16-year-old kid who looks even younger approaching anyone asking if he’s looking for some “hot, semi-anonymous, man-on-man lovin’.” Who else is going to answer, “Tell me more, sweet jailbait”? Basically, everyone normal is going to nope the fuck out of there.


	9. Indecent Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a string of bad blind “dates” courtesy of Peter, Kraglin goes after what he really wants: Yondu. Unfortunately, Cap’n still can’t take a hint, so Kraglin decides to directly and unambiguously come on to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to respect the fic’s original M-rating, so all sex is going to be off-screen, showing only the lead-up and aftermath. If you want something more explicit, I am also posting my other E-rated fic, "Macho, Macho Man," where Kraglin and Yondu get into all sorts of nasty situations. Also, it’s been a while, but the flashback in this chapter references the story Yondu told Kraglin in the prior chapter.

**14 Years Earlier**

“Shame abou’ you an’ Mar’inex, Cap’n,” Tullk sympathizes with a tipsy, newly-single, newly-minted Captain Yondu Udonta as he pours him another shot from their shared bottle.

“Yeah, well… we both knew it weren’ goin’a las’. I’mma Cap’n o’ m’own ship now, an’ Marty… Well, Marty likes where he’s zat,” Yondu says into his drink before downing it. He almost believes his half-truth.

“The Ogords made it work in years past,” Tellarune hedges, careful of his volatile friend’s feelings.

“Yeah, an’ how’s tha’ workin’ out for ‘em now?” Yondu snaps bitterly, rehashing an argument Martinex had made earlier in opposition of a potential long-distance relationship. “They barely talk. Me an’ Marty… we’d rather end on good terms than repeat their mistake.” Or rather, Martinex had made the decision for the both of them.

Tullk wordlessly tips the bottle into Yondu’s empty glass for a refill.

“Hey, is that Udonta o’er yonder?” A drunk portly Captain Pohl wearing deep amber leathers bellows from a couple tables over.

“Yeah, I’d recognize the blue bastard anywhere,” his first mate confirms, then stage whispers to their assembled crew, “I hear tell he earned his commission on his back.”

“Ya got somethin’ ya want’a say ta me?” Yondu staggers up from his chair, looking mad enough to whistle but too drunk to do so effectively without slaughtering his own crew as well. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need his arrow or even a baseline level of coordination to take on this lot.

Tullk rises with him, hands on his twin blasters and a snarl on his face. Taking notice of the escalating tensions, additional reds from nearby tables reach for their weapons.

“Ya best reconsider yer next words,” Tellarune calls out as he stands as well. Still, he holds back Yondu by the shoulder and murmurs into his ear, “Yondu… Cap’n, I think this situation may call fer a li’l diplomacy; maybe some caution an’ restraint, yeah?” Their faction is new, and it wouldn’t due to cause in-fighting so early. Stakar expected better of Yondu these days.

“Yeah, listen to yer handler, boy,” Captain Pohl interprets the inaudible aside. Addressing Tellarune, he offers, “Hey, I’ll pay ya 200 credits if ya git him ta bend over purty-like.”

His resultant deep belly laughter is cut short when Rue’s thrown bottle collides with his large nose, any remaining liquor spilling over his burst skin, stinging the tender split flesh.

Tullk has already tipped over their table and is half-way to the amber-clothed first mate to deliver a well-deserved beatdown before their respective clans can rise to join the brawl. Amber clashes with red as men use their fists, knives, and blasters to thin out the other side. From the thick of it all, Yondu laughs maniacally as he tackles Captain Pohl, scooping out half an eyeball with two dirty dark blue claws as the large man struggles and screams.

“Wha’ happen to ‘caution an’ restrain’, eh Rue?” Tullk asks later in the aftermath of the fight that left a sniveling Captain Pohl in need of an eyepatch and many men strewn across the floor. He squeezes a gash across his own arm, blue seeping through to stain his sleeve dark purple.

Shouldering a moaning barely-conscious Horuz, blood gushing from an open head wound, Tellarune glances over at Captain Pohl and manages a stunted shrug. “He alive, ain’t he?”

 

* * *

 

**Present Day**

To win the affections of the prickly Captain, Kraglin makes it his personal mission to stand out above the rest of his bawdy crew, doubling down on earlier efforts to catch Yondu’s notice and prove himself a man worthy of his up-to-now elusive attentions. He’s older now, Kraglin reasons, not the same 16-year-old kid he had been when he had made his first serious bid for Yondu. In hindsight, the cause of his failure was obvious. Pete is 16 now, and Kraglin can’t imagine _anyone_ his age, much less older, having a genuine sexual interest in the brat, so of course Cap’n hadn’t taken him seriously before. That would all change today.

Kraglin approaches Yondu with a datapad, a mug, and a plan.

“Here ya go, Cap’n. I changed out the engine fluids, checked the stabilizers, and itemized the parts we need fer the lower right flank o’ the fleet, then I mopped up after I was done.” Kraglin hands Yondu the datapad, standing close to scroll through the various tasks he had completed awaiting Cap’n’s assessment and approval.

“Did chu figure out the source o’ that rattlin’ sound Vorker’s been bitchin’ ‘bout?”

“Yeah. Right here on the list is the order fer the replacement, an’ I got chu a coffee, two creams no sugar. Just the way ya like it, sir,” he says as he hands him the mug from his other hand.

“Hm… I guess ya earned yerself a break, then,” Yondu commends him off-handedly. He places the mug on the counter, undrunk, to review what he has been handed. He supposes Kraglin is a good kid, and with the recent uptick in his work ethic, he may soon climb the ranks of Ravager hierarchy.

“Will you be wantin’ anythin’ else, Cap’n?” Kraglin inquires smoothly.

Without looking up, Yondu waves him off. “Naw, that’ll be all fer now.”

Undeterred, Kraglin leans in closer and drops his tone to a more suggestive register. “I mean it, Cap’n. I’m up fer anythin’,” he murmurs, “ _Anythin’_ at all.”

Yondu meets his gaze, an odd look in his eye at Kraglin’s sudden surprising proximity. He frowns as he stands his ground against the towering beanpole before him, puffing out his chest and straightening his spine, utilizing good posture to close the height gap between himself and the slouching youth.

Captain Yondu Udonta refuses to be intimidated on his own ship.

“If yer anglin’ fer more ta do, then go make sure Quill don’t skimp on his work. He’s s’posed to scrub ‘em pots ‘til they shine or he’ll be stewin’ in ‘em come evenin’,” he orders crisply. “Ain’t no idle hands on my ship.”

Kraglin’s expectant face falls.

“Yes sir,” he says before slinking off to perform his newly-assigned task.

His jaw tight, Yondu watches him leave; threat defused.

Later, during evening mess, Kraglin again attempts to charm Yondu.

“Hey Cap’n, lookin’ forward to shore leave tonight?”

“Hm,” Yondu grunts, mechanically eating the dark slop before him.

Sitting next to Pete who is wolfing down his own portion, Kraglin taps a spoon against his tray. “Just wonderin’ which bars are good on Ciirus.”

“Well, I’m goin’ ta Shaky’s then maybe Grundle’s Hallow and–“

“Good job,” Peter whispers to Kraglin while Yondu drones on. “Now we know which places to avoid.”

True to his word, Pete drags Kraglin to other watering holes and flashy clubs, specifically avoiding any of the bars Yondu had listed.

If this was ever going to work, Kraglin needed to ditch the kid, but how?

“Hey Pete, want’a play a game?” Kraglin asks, already ordering a pitcher of their strongest mixed drink and a stack of six glasses from a waitress in a skin-tight miniskirt. He pulls out a token. “We arrange the glasses in a triangle at the other end of the table. If one of us can flip the token into a full glass, the other has to drink, yeah? Game’s over when all six are gone. Loser is the one what drinks the most. Play ya best o’ three.”

Peter tears his eyes away from the waitress’s shapely ass. He hesitates, “That’s a lot of drinks, Kraglin. I don’t know if–“

“Winner gits flyin’ privileges on our next mission,” Kraglin says.

“Okay, I’m in.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey Cap’n, fancy seein’ you here,” Kraglin approaches Yondu, sitting alone at the bar of a nondescript dive. It’s quieter than the places Pete prefers and smaller with less clientele and an even smaller menu of drinks, primarily limited to beer and straight hard liquors, served with or without ice for variety.

“Did ya lose Quill a few bars back?” Yondu asks, looking past the youth to search for his customary ginger-haired shadow.

“Pete decided to turn in early, so I locked ‘im in my M-ship to sleep it off ‘til I git back. He ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Kraglin replies cryptically.

“The kid’s resourceful,” Yondu says, a blush of pride in his voice. “He may hotwire yer ship an’ take it fer a joyride.”

“That’s why I locked him in the cargo hold.” He’s no amateur; he’d been dealing with Pete’s antics for near a decade. Taking note of the man’s furrowed forehead, he rushes to reassure him, “Don’t worry none; he hasn’ had that much more’n the usual. I turned him on his side an’ left a bucket case he needs’a hurl or take a piss in the night. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Ain’t worried. The boy’ll learn… eventually,” Yondu says, but his expression relaxes markedly. He indicates the stool next to him with an idle tip of his head.

“Maybe…” Kraglin takes the proffered seat. “Anyways, yer right handsome tonight, sir, if ya don’t mind me sayin’,” he begins. Alone for once, with Pete out of commission, it is his best shot. “Ya lookin’ fer some company?”

“What’s it to you?” Yondu drawls.

Kraglin taps his fingers across the bar top in a nervous rhythm. “Well, I’m in the same boat. Was kind’a hopin’ tonight would be my lucky night.”

Yondu hums in agreement then suggests, “Ya might have a bit more luck at the Bloomin’ Ruin. Has a younger clientele; prob’ly more yer style.”

“Naw, I like my men a bit more mature, ya know… more worldly and authentic. Someone with a killer sense o’ humor…” he hints, staring meaningfully at his companion, who’s gazing directly into his drink to Kraglin’s growing annoyance. “An’ blue. I like ‘em bluer than my balls are right now,” he says flatly.

Yondu turns towards him, expression scrunched into a frown before he cracks a smile so wide it accentuates the creases of his eyes. He punches him lightly on the shoulder. “That’s a good’un, Kraglin. Real funny.”

Yondu swivels back, facing forward, and slides his drink closer, lifting it off the bar, still chuckling to himself.

_Fuck it._

Kraglin leans in. “Subtlety ain’t workin’, so let’s say you an’ me go to the men’s bathroom fer a hard fuck against a stall door. Really test out the sturdiness o’ this shithole.”

Yondu stops, glass raised halfway to his lips, processing and reprocessing Kraglin’s proposition. He downs the rest of his drink before slamming it back on the sticky bar top.

“How old are you?” Yondu finally asks, turning a dubious eye to the boy – no, the man – beside him.

“Old enough,” Kraglin replies with a broad grin. Finally, some results.

“Ain’t an answer.”

“22 this year.”

“Still a brat,” Yondu says, disinterested. He turns away to examine his stack of empty tumblers. “You got a daddy fetish or somethin’?”

Kraglin looks scandalized. “Fuck no, but if ya want’a call _me_ Daddy, I reckon I can work with that. Hell, you can call me whatever ya want so long as I git to touch ya.”

Yondu doesn’t say anything to that, his quirked eye ridge and slight frown his only response as he stares at Kraglin for a long moment, openly appraising him with a languid sweep up and down the younger man’s body. Kraglin waits in anticipation of his verdict. To his delight, Yondu silently raises two fingers to the barkeep, but when the Lumphomoid plops down two of the swill they are slinging, Yondu promptly downs them both.

“Don’t do favorites, so if yer thinkin’ you can fuck yer way to a promotion…”

“Ain’t what I had in mind, Cap’n. Just thinkin’ how purty you’d look sandwiched between me an’ a flat surface.”

“An’ what makes ya think a skinny li’l kid like you can hold my interest?” Yondu challenges him.

“I got a big cock and more importantly the stamina of a horny 21-year old eager to do right by ya. Hell, with all due respect, I’m wondering if _you_ can keep up with _me_ … sir,” Kraglin says matter-of-factly. At Yondu’s darkening expression, he quickly adds, “But I’m willin’ to wager on the answer to that bein’ yes. Only one way ta find out fer sure.”

Yondu inhales audibly. “You always had a mouth on ya, ever since you was a li’l maggot.”

“I can think of better uses fer my mouth, if you’d allow it, Cap’n,” Kraglin says low, in what he hopes sounds dark and sexy, before reaching out to run his fingers lightly over Yondu’s knuckles. He knows he’s pushing his luck with Cap’n’s infamously short temper, but he’s wanted this for so long, his stomach flips and he can hear his heart pulsing in the back of his throat while the seconds drag into eternity.

Yondu frowns, pointedly removing Kraglin’s hand from his person. “I’ll think ‘bout it,” he replies, but he’s already looking through Kraglin to check out an older, buff Aakon man behind him.

Rejected, Kraglin slowly slumps off his seat and out the door, headed towards his M-ship to spend the night alone with a snoring Pete.

 

* * *

 

“And this is also how you would switch out storage for more seats, right?” Peter asks the following day while shadowing Kraglin on M-ship maintenance and repair.

“Well yeah, these M-ships are modular like that, but be sure to balance out the weight a bit,” Kraglin says, while tightening a series of bolts to secure an upgraded pilot chair they had recently salvaged. “Why would chu need more seats, anyway?”

“What if I seduce a woman _and_ her smoking-hot friend? I wouldn’t want to choose which lovely lady to take on a romantic ride through the stars,” Peter explains plainly in a tone that suggests the answer should have been self-evident.

Kraglin snorts. “With yer luck, they’ll end up hooking up with each other an’ use ya only fer free cab service.”

“So… that means I’ll still get to watch?”

Kraglin is about to issue a snarky retort when Cap’n appears, ostensibly to observe their progress. He overtightens, almost stripping the last bolt in surprise.

“How’s the upgrade comin’ along?” Yondu inquires, his tone neutral.

“Just fine until you showed up,” Quill responds, slouching into a hunch. “Coming to check up on me? Again.”

“You say that like ya didn’ near kill yerself last month when ya tried ta mess with an M-ship’s main wirin’.” Yondu crosses his arms and gives the boy a look, challenging him to disagree with his warranted skepticism.

“But I didn’t die,” Peter argues back.

“Small miracles.”

Yondu stays for a good forty minutes, squabbling with Peter and distracting Kraglin far more than he should be.

Perhaps it is his imagination born of futile hope, but Kraglin is fairly certain Yondu is watching him, observing him with more than the cursory glance of a captain towards his subordinate. Rather, Yondu’s gaze lingers, particularly when Kraglin isn’t looking directly at him, instead peering at him from the edge of his peripheral vision.

When he requests a screwdriver from his tool box, Yondu sidesteps Peter to bend over low to retrieve it. Kraglin nearly drops a wrench on his foot.

“What’s with you today?” Peter asks his friend. Kraglin is not usually this tongue-tied or clumsy.

“Shut up, Pete.”

Later, when Kraglin receives a private request for an after-hours meeting in Cap’n’s quarters on his wrist comm, he stares at the message, his index finger trembling before selecting “Accept.” He tells Pete he’s going to the on-board bar for a nightcap – alone. He urges him to get on to bed without him, while he heads out to his rendezvous with Cap’n instead, a slight spring in his step. Standing outside the entrance, he collects himself, clearing his throat and straightening his collar, before placing his palm on the access panel as it sweeps open to let him inside.

“So, ya want’a fuck?” Yondu asks as soon as the door closes behind him.

Kraglin stumbles, caught off-guard by his brazen propostion. “M- more’n anythin’, sir. Wanted to fer a long time if I’m bein’ honest.”

“Yer lookin’ fer more’n just a one-off, then.”

Kraglin doesn’t want to seem too enamored with the man, lest it drive Yondu away. “Maybe to start. See how ya like it first.”

“… All right, boy, but there’s goin’a be ground rules, yeah?” Yondu says firmly, arms crossed. “No damage, no marks where crew can see ‘em, an’ no gossipin’. If I hear rumors that you got the big bad Cap’n bendin’ over fer ya, I whistle. An’ finally either o’ us can walk at any time, no questions asked, no explanations needed. Git it?”

“Okay,” Kraglin agrees. He’s already unfastening the many belts of his uniform, his dick standing at half-attention, lightly tenting the loose fabric below.

“Jus’ so ya know, we do this, it’s just fuckin’,” Yondu reiterates as he pulls his shirt up and over his head before moving to unzip his pants. “Don’t expect no special consideration. You step out’a line, steal from me, try to stick that big knife in my back while ya think I got my guard down, I whistle. Ain’t goin’ ta hesitate even. Then I dump yer body in the stew pot fer the men.”

“Fair ‘nough,” Kraglin says, as he strips off the top of his jumpsuit, revealing the tattoos trailing down his neck and across his collar bone.

His own pants still loosely hugging his hips, Yondu pauses at the sight then roughly grabs Kraglin’s shoulder to better examine the Easik runes adorning his skin. His mouth thins as his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“If this is ‘bout gittin’ payback fer yer friends–“

“It ain’t,” Kraglin interrupts. “I just… want’a ‘member ‘em is all. The only reason they’re dead is ‘cause o’ Ego anyway.”

“You tell Quill ‘bout ‘em? About any o’ it?” Yondu’s voice is low and severe as he squeezes Kraglin’s arm almost to the point of pain.

“Fuck no. I ain’t stupid.”

Yondu searches his face for the lie, and finding none, he incrementally crushes his arm further in warning before abruptly letting go. Kraglin rubs the dull ache from his newly-freed limb. It wasn’t the best start to their tryst, but he’ll make up for it, he supposes. He leans in for a kiss.

Yondu backs away, pressing his hand against the other man’s chest to stop his advances. “None o’ that. Need my lips free, just in case.”

Kraglin frowns but doesn’t push for affection his Cap’n is clearly unwilling to give.

“An’ what you said earlier ‘bout yer stamina? You best be able to back that up,” Yondu warns, dropping his pants.

Kraglin rolls his eyes. “We goin’a keep talkin’ all night, or are ya goin’a let me fuck you?”

Yondu pushes Kraglin onto his bed, following him soon after. His smile is practically predatory as he straddles the younger man, reaching behind himself to stroke Kraglin’s erection to full attention.

“Ready?” he murmurs.

Rendered speechless, Kraglin can only nod.

 

* * *

 

“Wow,” Kraglin manages, once he catches his breath after. Who knew the old man could be so resilient… and flexible.

Yondu simply hums in response. He lies on his back, slightly apart from his paramour.

Staring at the ceiling, Kraglin ventures, “So, how did you do that one thing...”

“I got damn near twenty years experience on ya. Bound to know a few tricks.” Yondu yawns, and crooks his arm to rub the back of his neck before ultimately settling it underneath his head.

“…Can ya teach me?”

He chuckles. “You just got a lesson, boy.”

“Could use a refresher,” Kraglin says rolling back on top of Yondu. “I’m a bit slow, but I’m a hands-on learner.”


	10. Man with a Gold Earring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin and Yondu slowly raise the emotional stakes of their fling. Meanwhile, Peter feels neglected, and Tullk’s gentle hints are as subtle as dropped anvils.

**14 Years Earlier**

Cursing his relative sobriety, Tellarune steadies Yondu, half-dragging his Captain by the arm pulled across his shoulders. He’s not built for this. If Tullk hadn’t needed to tend to his own injuries, they would have been able to straddle their inebrietated burden between them. Then again, nothing about this night of supposed celebration is going as planned. He shuffles towards Captain’s quarters, crouching down to activate the door with Yondu’s palm print before he hauls him towards bed.

“An’ down ya go,” he grunts as he heaves his Captain onto the bed, legs hanging over the side. Panting from exertion, he plants a hand on the mattress to push himself up only to be stopped by Yondu hooking his fingers around the belt traversing his chest.

“Why don’t chu stay a spell, yeah?” Yondu pulls him in close enough that Tellarune can smell the overwhelming stench of booze on his breath.

“…What?”

“Haven’ ya thought ‘bout it? At least once?” He tugs lightly on the slack collar of Rue’s jumpsuit, but his coordination fails, rendering him unable to do so much as loosen a buckle in his compromised state.

Tellarune prises Yondu’s liquor-limped fingers from his clothing to stand. “Okaaaaay, you’ve had a bit too much. Let’s–“

Lying flat on his back, Yondu’s unfocused eyes stare up at the ceiling as he paws at the air, catching the other man’s retreating sleeve. “Ya knew he weren’ goin’a stay ‘cause yer deep in the same mistake. It weren’ goin’a work when it stopped bein’ conve – convenien’. I knew it, too, but I was kind’a hopin’ I was wrong. Now we’re both here, an’ it would be so _easy,_ you an’ me. I know ya like me. Ain’t no way you’d act like ya do if ya didn’,” he says, his gravely voice soft with despondency.

“Ya don’t know what yer sayin’, Cap’n,” Tellarune responds, firmly. “We’re friends an’ that’s that.”

Yondu’s resultant laughter is hollow. “C’mon Rue, I weren’ born yesterday. I know how tha game works. Ain’t nobody nice ta nobody fer free. You’ve been waitin’ out’a respect fer Marty, but now tha’s o’er, an’ I’m sayin’ yes. So le’s do this. Ain’t nobody got’a know.”

Rue extricates himself from the situation, walking away from Yondu’s offer. He pauses at the door. “Yer just drunk. I’ll see ya in the mornin’ when yer head’s on straight.”

Once in the hallway, he considers retiring to bed before heading towards the Eclector’s onboard bar for a much-needed drink or three.

The next morning, Yondu manages to work through his residual hangover by scrutinizing the duties of the remaining crew not injured enough to be confined to medbay.

“I said I wanted this floor fuckin’ spotless!” He rages, “An’ what the fuck is this shit right ‘ere?”

“Um… rust, sir? It don’t really come out, so–“ the hapless recruit tries to explain.

“So… what?” Yondu’s tone drops low, deadly.

“I’ll get the vinegar, Cap’n. That should take it off right quick,” he pipes up, scrambling to escape the man’s inexplicable temper. He supposes Cap’n must still be upset about certain rumors surrounding his promotion, rumors he himself will never repeat for fear of violent reprisals.

The recruit nearly bumps into Tellarune as he speeds past Yondu to carry out his orders. For his part, Yondu looks less than pleased with present company. He may not recall everything that happened last night, but he remembered enough for it to be awkward.

Rue begins, “So, ‘bout last night–”

“No idea what yer goin’ on about. Nothin’ happened,” Yondu insists, not quite meeting his friend’s eyes.

“Right… Well, if anythin’ did, it was just because one of us was drunk and sad, and didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“I weren’t sad.”

“Uh huh…” Rue agrees, unconvinced. They stand, each uniquely self-conscious, the tension thick between them. He scratches the back of his neck nervously before continuing, “Ya know, very few people git it right the first shot. One day, you’ll find someone that’ll stick by ya despite the fact that yer an ornery jackass.”

“Watch yer mouth, Obfonteri,” Yondu warns. He’s still new to his captain role and as such hasn’t yet had time to instill proper respect in his subordinants, but he’s proven he can still gouge his opponents’ eyes out with the best of them. “I don’t need no one. I was just a tad drunk is all.”

“Oh I know. It ain’t yer fault any how. We all know I’m irresistible, so it’s completely understandable, see?” Tellarune crows, his chest puffing up with faux bravado.

“Definitely not what happened.”

“Aw, no need ta pretend, Cap’n. I know I’mma sexy bastard,” he smirks as he strokes his chin between thumb and forefinger. “Men, women, nonbinary, hermaphroditic squid people… I’m universally appealing. Too handsome fer my own good.”

“Only when I got more alcohol than blood circlin’ my veins,” Yondu growls as he crosses his arms.  

Tellarune flashes a bit of tooth. “Truth serum, ya mean.”

Yondu pinches the bridge of his nose between his eyes then cuffs his first mate across the back of the head, “Stop preenin’, an’ git back ta work, asshole.”

 

* * *

 

**Present Day**

Kraglin lies next to Yondu, breathless, his dick damp and shrinking while the evidence of Yondu’s satisfaction pools in the hollow of his stomach. He reckons he has a generous five minutes before Cap’n kicks him out.

He turns to face Yondu watching him before he slowly, lazily, leans in for a kiss.

Yondu whips his hand out to hold him by the shoulder at arms length, staying him with more force than is necessary.

“None of that. We ain’t there, boy.”

Kraglin sighs, rolling onto his back. “Right. We’re only jus’ fuckin’.”

“Damn straight.”

Kraglin doesn’t know what he expected. It’s been three months, and Yondu is still as detached as ever. Kraglin is fairly certain his captain no longer thinks he’s trying to kill him out of either revenge or ambition, but maybe Centaurians as a whole just express affection a bit more brusquely than Xandarians…

Or perhaps this is the extent of emotional involvement Yondu in particular is capable of having with _anyone_.

Yondu exaggerates his yawn, making a show of stretching out to settle onto his back. “It’s ‘bout time ya head back,” he hints.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Kraglin sits up to fold his legs over the edge of the bed. He grabs his jumpsuit, slowly slipping his feet through then standing to pull them up and fasten his many belts before stepping into his boots.

“Maybe take a shower ‘fore ya head off ta bed. You reek,” he suggests. It’s a practical consideration. Neither Yondu nor Kraglin really wants the latter to fall asleep next to Pete still smelling freshly of their sex.

Kraglin doesn’t say anything to that. He simply nods, his eyes downcast as he slumps towards the door.

“Hey…” Yondu begins. Kraglin looks back at him, his expectant expression tinged with hope. Yondu stops, then: “Same time next week?”

Kraglin’s face falls as he turns away in disappointment, feeling more than a little foolish.

“…Of course, Cap’n.”

Thirty minutes later, when he crawls into bed next to Peter, Kraglin lies facing outward while the boy throws an arm around his waist and snuggles in close, his nose inches from the nape of Kraglin’s neck.

“You shower again?” Pete mumbles, his nose twitching at the absence of familiar Ravager musk.

“…Yeah, Pete. Decided to try out yer crazy hygiene routine,” Kraglin whispers back.

“It’s nice.”

“Might make it a habit.”

Peter hums approvingly, rustling the short hairs on the back of his companion’s neck. He quickly drops off to sleep, his breath slowing to a light snore just behind Kraglin’s ear.

Pete is not Yondu, but Kraglin welcomes the weight of a body curled up against his own as he nods off as well, warm and comfortable, in the friendly embrace.

 

* * *

 

It’s their six month anniversary when Kraglin nervously shuffles into Cap’n’s quarters for their scheduled tryst. Yondu is already removing his pants as Kraglin makes his way towards him and the bed. It’s been a hard day, and they could both use a little stress relief.

Kraglin’s hands rest on top of Yondu’s own just before he can remove his shirt.

“Cap’n…” he says. There’s something soft in his voice that causes Yondu pause, but when he meets Kraglin’s eyes to challenge whatever _it_ may be, the younger man has already lost his nerve. “Let me help you with that,” he finishes lamely, as he takes it upon himself to pull Yondu’s shirt up and over his head.

“Seems a bit uneven, if ya ask me,” Yondu comments, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he loosens a buckle on Kraglin’s jumpsuit. “Don’t seem quite fair that I’m the only one shiverin’ in m’ skivvies ‘ere.”

“Just admirin’ the view,” Kraglin quips, unzipping then shrugging off the outfit before Yondu chuckles, pulling him down towards the bed.

Kraglin fears that after what he’s about to do, tonight may be the last time he’s allowed to touch Yondu like this, to smell him, taste him, hear his soft moans become fast and guttaral as he gets close. So this time, Kraglin savors the feel of Yondu’s body. He buries his face in Yondu’s shoulder, trying to commit his strong musky scent to memory as he ruts into him, his hands splayed across blue skin as he travels from his chest to his back down to cup his firm round ass to roll rhythmically in time with his thrusts. The man isn’t soft by any stretch of the imagination, but like this, malleable under his touch, clutching him in a tight embrace, Kraglin can pretend Yondu cares, if only for a little while.

Afterwards, Kraglin lies on his back, staring at the ceiling, trying to rally his nerves. He doesn’t have much time before he loses this opportunity. Still, he stays frozen, rooted to the spot, evaluating the possible outcomes of his next move, specifically gifting Yondu a small token of his affections, something meaningful to him that will demonstrate the depth of his feelings. Really, what’s the worst that could happen? Yondu could laugh in his face and reject the gift. He could look at it with that constipated expression he got when something displeased him, then order Kraglin out of his bed permanently... Or maybe he’ll accept, and perhaps that was the most frightening prospect of all.

Only one way to find out.

When he hears Yondu take a long breath as a preamble to kicking him out, Kraglin quickly flips over to the side to retrieve his jumpsuit, rooting through the pockets. Once he finds the item in question, he rounds on his captain, presenting the small gold earring to Yondu in his outstretched hand.

“I got somethin’ fer you,” he says in a jumble.

Yondu looks surprised before his demeanor turns wary. “And what is this,” he states, his voice flat and edged in something unidentifiable and hard.

“It’s… it was my mama’s. I’d like you to have it, ‘cause… well, I think it’ll look nice on ya?” Kraglin says, his voice going small at Yondu’s humorless stare.

He holds it out for a long five seconds, but when Yondu doesn’t move to take it, he wilts, his fingers folding over the rejected gift. “Forgit it… It was just a stupid thought anyway,” he says despondently.

Yondu pries his fingers open, snatching the earring from his palm. “You said ya got it fer me. No take-backs,” he declares, eyeing the delicately-feminine hoop. It’s dull with age, but he supposes it will shine up nice enough for him to add to the collection lining his ear. “It’s kind’a purty.”

Kraglin smiles, broad and genuine. “I’m glad ya like it, sir.”

Yondu grunts then carefully deposits the family heirloom in the junk bin of his bedside drawer amongst some tacks, bits of shiny wire, and miscellaneous odds and ends of questionable value.

Kraglin frowns.

“So… it’s getting late…” Yondu hints, still peering into the drawer.

 _Of course,_ Kraglin thinks bitterly, but to his pleasant surprise, Yondu is sporting the earring a week later when he approaches him and Peter with a tantalizing opportunity.

“It’s a two-man job on Divant to retrieve the Thyrilleum Emerald. Shouldn’t take too long, only a couple days.”

“Awesome! When do we leave?” Peter asks.

“ _You_ don’t. I said two men. Me an’ Kraglin,” Yondu clarifies.

“Really, Yondu? You’re always saying how I need to earn my keep or you’ll eat my useless hide,” Peter says, “Why don’t you give me the opportunity to prove myself as something better than a meal for the crew?”

“Are ya questionin’ my authority, Quill? I said me an’ Kraglin are goin’ on this job, an’ that’s final.”

Later, Peter sympathizes with his hapless friend. “Tough break, dude. I tried to get you out of it,” Peter says, offering his condolences on the man’s poor luck by patting Kraglin on the back. “Just… keep your head down, don’t fuck up, and try not to catch an arrow in your ass, okay?”

“This is me we’re talkin’ ‘bout. I don’t fuck up,” Kraglin says confidently, his voice positively upbeat. If Peter didn’t know better, he may have thought that Kraglin is actually happy with recent circumstances, but that is a preposterous supposition. More likely, Kraglin is only trying to maintain a positive attitude for Peter’s benefit so as not to alarm him, that poor noble bastard.

“Just… don’t piss him off. It doesn’t take much, you know,” Peter worries as he chews on his bottom lip, mulling the potential fatal consequences of the upcoming excursion. In his experience, Yondu is a temperamental, dangerous man. Even if he didn’t outright murder Kraglin, the chances of maiming or otherwise damaging his friend were higher than Peter is entirely comfortable with, and this time, he won’t be around to distract Yondu if Kraglin draws his ire.

Kraglin simply rolls his eyes. “I’ll be fine. It’s two days, three tops,” he reassures him.

The job only lasts one day, a single evening to be precise. So, when Yondu and Kraglin stumble up to their rented quarters after a celebratory tipple at the bar, Yondu snakes an arm around Kraglin’s midsection, leaning heavily into the man for support as he unlocks the door with his registered palm print.

“No one’s spectin’ us back fer a while, an’ room’s pre-paid. It’d be a shame fer it to go to waste, a damn shame,” he slurs, pushing Kraglin across the threshold. They tumble down together onto the bed, wrinkling the clean crisply-tucked sheets.

“Ya knew it weren’t goin’a take no three days. You… you planned this?”

_Of course._

“Very smart o’ you ta figure that all out on yer lonesome. The real question is: You goin’a make the most o’ it or not?”

Kraglin feels his stomach flutter as he pulls Yondu in close. This time, Yondu doesn’t stop him when he tips forward to brush his lips against Yondu’s cautiously, tentatively. When Kraglin angles back to gauge his reaction, Yondu looks disappointed with Kraglin’s mousy attempt at flirtatious ardour, but his dissatisfaction morphs into determination as he pounces on Kraglin himself, crushing him against his chest, open mouth pressed hungrily against Kraglin’s own, entangling their tongues together in a passionate kiss. They fall down together, shedding clothes and inhibitions, both forgetting the Eclector, Ravager politics, and past disappointments to simply be together, to love and be loved, if only for a moment.

They return to the Eclector as Captain Yondu Udonta and his unremarkable subordinant, back from a moderately profitable job with plausible stories of delayed delivery and tricky negotiations necessitating an extension of one day to the original two.

“I thought Yondu killed you and took three days to butcher your body into stew meat,” Peter greets him at the M-ship docks. “I was already stocking up on ration bars to avoid having to eat your corpse!”

The corners of Kraglin’s mouth quirk up at the image of Peter planning for his untimely demise. “How thoughtful…”

“Yeah, just remember that when we’re lost in space and have to draw straws to figure out who’s next on the menu.”

“Why’re ya worryin’ ‘bout havin’ ta resort to cannibalism? By the time we have’ta draw straws, you’ll already be dead,” Kraglin points out, referencing Pete's long-standing status as emergency rations.

Peter is not amused. “Really dude?”

“What? I don’t make the peckin’ order. Tell ya what, ‘cause we’re such good buddies an’ all, when the time comes, I’ll be sure ta do it quick-like,” Kraglin offers, making a chopping motion towards Peter’s neck with the blade of his hand. “You won’t feel a thing.”

“ _When_ the time comes?” Peter repeats incredulously.

Kraglin shrugs. “I guess you could die way ‘fore that, from blood loss on account’a bein’ stabbed in the dick by some woman ya crossed.”

“You are such an unbelievable asshole.”

With that, the pair walks off, squabbling like always.

Over the next several days, Yondu largely avoids being openly alone with Kraglin, much to the latter’s frustration. _Nothin’ changes on the Eclector,_ Yondu had said. _Business is business._ While Kraglin understood the need for discretion, it didn’t mean he wasn’t disheartened. Still, they shared meals and breaks together, often in the company of Peter.

“… and then, Kevin Bacon leads the entire town in a perfectly-synchronized dance, the first in twenty years. I’m telling you man, greatest movie ever. Iconic, really,” Peter gushes, idly stirring his spoon in his bowl of evening stew.

“I dunno Pete, yer tellin’ me these kids never danced before, an’ they just… all fall in line jus’ like that?” Kraglin says, doubtful.

“That’s not the point!” Peter scowls. As usual, Kraglin gets caught up in the tiny details, always failing to grasp the big picture. “It’s about the power of freedom through music.”

Kraglin looks thoughtful before saying around a mouthful of stew: “So, a bunch of people jus’ happen ta know the exact moves at the exact right times, an’ ya don’t think mind control was at play?”

Yondu chuckles from the other side of Kraglin. “He got chu there, boy. Sounds ta me that there music was hidin’ some sub-liminal messagin’ an’ yer movie ‘bout freedom is actually ‘bout effective brainwashin’.”

“What? No! You guys got it all wrong!” Peter protests.

Yondu smirks. He always found a certain pleasure in teasing his boy and was happy to find a willing conspirator in Kraglin. “Quill, the most effective brainwashin’ is when the victim don’t even know it’s happenin’. They all are happy thinkin’ this dancin’ is their idea. It ain’t though.”

Peter wasn’t sure how it had transpired, but over time, he increasingly feels like a third wheel in the duo’s inexplicable friendship. In fact, Kraglin seemed to be less available overall. He went on monthly solo missions with Yondu lasting a couple days each time, and some nights, Peter swore Kraglin didn’t come to bed at all. The following day, he invariably seemed tired but implausibly chipper.

Yondu’s general attitude improves as well. It was more subtle than Kraglin’s, but he seemed to dole out less severe punishments for various infractions. The crew had even begun to talk that Yondu must be grooming the young man for a promotion, perhaps even as his first conscripted Captain in a bid to become Admiral of his own fleet of Ravagers to rival that of Stakar Ogord’s. Yondu’s first mate often looked askance at Kraglin, as if Cap’n’s protégé was gunning for his position.

Which is why Peter is so miffed five months later in the brothels when the two seemingly disappear for the night. _Yer a man now, Quill,_ Yondu had declared, despite the fact that Peter had technically reached his age of majority the year before. _You can have yer pick o’ any hooker ‘ere. My treat._ Peter had nervously selected a buxom Krylorian for the evening.

When he emerges an hour later, both Yondu and Kraglin were nowhere to be found. That is not unexpected, as they are likely busy with their own prostitutes. However, when they fail to appear several hours later, Peter catches a ride back to the Eclector with Tullk.

“I can’t believe they ditched me. Again,” Peter complains.

“Well, it were boun’ ta happen eventually, laddie. Yer get’in’ older. Don’ need no watchin’ no more,” Tullk says simply. In his unspoken opinion, Cap’n’s coddling of Quill had gone on long past what he thought advisable.

“Yeah, I know, but even when Kraglin is around, he just sucks up to Yondu all the time.”

“Cap’n has taken a special interes’ in Kraglin. His daddy was Cap’n’s firs’ mate back when, ‘member? Cap’n pro’ly thinks Kraglin has the same poten’ial.”

“So, Yondu just misses his friend, but does he have to steal mine?” Even to his own ears, Peter’s plea sounds a touch childish, so he elaborates further. “They’re always hanging out these days, making all these inside jokes even I don’t get. Kraglin keeps saying I had to be there, but that wouldn’t be a problem if they’d just include me sometimes, you know? He’s just never around anymore. They go on these jobs by themselves all the time, and outside of that, Kraglin’s gone a lot of nights. I think maybe they’re out drinking at a bar on one of the lower decks or maybe Yondu’s teaching him leadership or something.”

Just like Yondu used to take Peter out and give him private lessons, he thinks bitterly.

“…How often are we talkin’ ‘ere, tha’ Kraglin’s gone at nigh’?” Tullk asks, his voice carefully casual.

Mired in self-pity, Peter doesn’t notice the change in tone. “I don’t know, maybe every three or four days?”

“’S pro’ly nothin’,” Tullk says, mostly to himself.

“What’s probably nothing?”

“Lack o’ sleep can stun’ yer growth, bu’ Kraglin’s all grown now. He’s pro’ly fine,” he lies poorly.

Gullible as ever, Pete adds, “So… you’re saying I might be taller than Kraglin if he keeps this up?”

Leave it to Peter to find the silver lining in any situation.

 

* * *

 

“Khaleen Crown Jewels on Frukat. 8,000 credits. Three days. You in?” Yondu propositions Kraglin.

Before Kraglin can answer, Tullk offers, “I can go with ‘im, Cap’n.”

“Tullk, I think Cap’n wants ta go… ta make sure the job’s done right,” Kraglin says, responding to Yondu’s silent plea for backup.

Tullk waves off his flimsy excuse. “Nonsense, boyal. I’m sure Cap’n’s go’ a lot’a ‘sponsibili’ies an’ he wouldn’ wan’na tag alon’ on such a wee mission. Wouldn’ make sense when he has ta oversee the whole runnin’ o’ the Eclec’or, an’ all. Innae righ’, Cap’n?”

“Tullk does make a good point,” Yondu concedes, but the sharp glare he levels at his seemingly-oblivious friend fails to penetrate his thick skull.

“Tha’ settles it, lad. Now, le’s ge’ goin’ ‘fore we miss our window o’ opportunity,” Tullk says, practically strong-arming Kraglin towards the M-ship docks. Confused at the way Tullk managed to deftly swipe the two-man job out from under Yondu, Kraglin can only look longingly over his shoulder at his Captain. Of all the times Tullk decides they need to bond, he chooses this mission, he thinks, thoroughly annoyed.

Once clear of the Eclector, Kraglin locks in their destination per the transmitted specifications and engages the auto-pilot while Tullk reclines back, boots kicked up on the dashboard in front of him.

“Did I ever tell ye abou’ me childhood on Knowhere, lad?” He begins.

Still annoyed Tullk had somehow commandeered his getaway with Yondu, Kraglin crosses his arms. Rolling his eyes, he bites back, more than a touch disgruntled, “Yeah, yeah… Are ya goin’a tell me ‘bout the time ya stole the Collector’s toupee straight off’a his head? I still have my doubts that actually happened ‘cause I ain’t five years old.”

“I’m tellin’ ye, the Collec’or’s bald as a cue ball, but no, not abou’ tha’.” Tullk says. He sinks in deeper into his chair, fidgeting to adjust the lumps to conform to his backside. He might as well be physically comfortable for this unpleasant conversation.

“I had a friend back when. A purty lass named Harisse a few years older’an me. We used’a shoot lizards off walls with paper bulle’s toge’er. Was a decen’ earner. Could’a stole the white off’a rice she was tha’ good. She was so brigh’ then,” he reminisces.

“This again? Are ya tryin’a give me the sex talk? ‘Cause if ya are, yer ‘bout eight years too late,” Kraglin says, feeling rather rebellious.”I don’t want’a hear ‘bout the time ya lost yer vir–“

“Naw, this story ain’ abou’ ol’ Bess wha’ ran the halfway house, though she had chebs ou’ ta ‘ere,” Tullk interrupts him, rounded hands indicating absurdly large breasts. “Almos’ suffoca’ed, but would’a been near worth it. Anyway, back ta Harisse… Well, the overseer, he takes a shine to her, an’… Harisse wasn’ scared o’ much, but she was scared’a him. He never threa’ened her with no blaster or nothin’, bu’ power’s a funny thing, lad. Sometimes, the person above ye wants somethin’ an’ ye go alon’ with it jus’ ta not cause no trouble, even if ye didnae wan’ any o’ it,” Tullk says, his eyes shifting from the ceiling above to casually glance at Kraglin.  “So, if ye find yerself in tha’ situa’ion, ye can always come to me, yeah?”

Tullk was always more perceptive than he let on, much to Kraglin’s consternation. Kraglin swallows the nervous lump in his throat before replying, “Nothin’s goin’ on. I’m fine.”

“Oh I know… bu’ jus’ in case… If somethin’ _were_ happenin’, even if ye agreed to it ‘cause ye didn’ know wha’ would become o’ ye if ye said no… Kraglin, it ain’ yer faul’ an’ no need ta keep mum abou’ it,” he insists, suddenly serious and staring meaningfully at Kraglin to gauge his reaction.

Kraglin drops back into his chair and inhales sharply before meeting the other man’s eye. “I don’t know what chu think is happenin’, but my life right now is ‘xactly what I want.”

Tullk breaks eye contact, waving away his concern with a jovial smile, his tone lightening up significantly. “Alrigh’, alrigh’… Jus’ checkin’ in.”

“Okay,” Kraglin says. “An’ Tullk… Thanks, I think.”

Tullk leans over to fondly punch his boy on the shoulder. “There’s a good lad. Glad we had this talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in the comments last chapter, but I’m going to repeat it here. I usually write Kraglin as a bit more jaded when it comes to love, but this story is about an intergenerational relationship between a young person experiencing love for the very first time and a much older person who has loved and lost and is a bit more cynical about it all. So eventhough Kraglin knows the world sucks and he’s seen a lot of shit, his heart has never been broken before. Yondu is his first love, and despite other non-romantic disappointments Kraglin has had, he’s going to approach their relationship with a sort of hope and emotional recklessness Yondu is no longer capable of. For his part, Yondu is much more cautious, but young love is infectious and invigorating, and sometimes it’s just easier to fall for someone who has already fallen hard for you. Anyways, that’s the concept behind this chapter.


	11. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter doesn't approve.

By night shift three days later, Kraglin has vanished yet again along with their surly Captain. Tired of being left out, Peter resolves to track down his wayward friend and perhaps snag an invitation to future retreats with the pair. He isn’t exactly jealous, but there had been a time when Peter thought _he_ might have been Yondu’s favorite. Yondu had taught him how to fight, how to shoot, how to fly… and now he had inexplicably taken Kraglin under his wing, leaving Pete out in the cold.

Not anymore.

Peter had checked the kitchens, all eight onboard bars, and Kraglin’s favorite break rooms with no luck. Finally, he stands outside Yondu’s quarters, palm hovering over the access panel.

When he was younger, this had been their refuge away from the others. Yondu had programmed Peter’s palm print as the only other crewmember with access to his private quarters, and Peter often took advantage of this exclusive privilege to hide Kraglin and himself away from the wrath of vengeful men they had crossed. The two boys had huddled together for hours, safe behind reinforced doors until Yondu returned from whatever mission had lured him off the Eclector. Sometimes, Pete had even been able to coax the older boy into a game of pretend with Captain’s various knickknacks strewn around his cabin. He hadn’t been inside in years, but he hopes Yondu never bothered to revoke his access.

Peter presses down, the locking system beeping its approval before activating the quiet sweeping glide of the door.

 

* * *

 

Yondu is in one of his moods tonight. Quill had been acting defiant again, but this time, it was in full view of a half-dozen other men. Of course, Yondu had smacked him around a bit, but the boy never seemed to learn. It kept happening and in fact, seemed to increase in frequency the older he got. It always put Yondu on edge, made him want to seize control behind closed doors, to push Kraglin down and roughly ride out his frustration atop his cock. So, once inside his quarters, Yondu climbs onto a half-naked Kraglin’s lap, pressing him down onto the bed. Pulling off his own shirt, Yondu gives Kraglin a dangerous smile, the kind that never failed to excite the other man.

“Someone’s eager,” Yondu says, grinding his ass against Kraglin’s burgeoning erection.

Just then, the door slides open. Peter freezes on the threshold taking in the compromising tableau before him: Kraglin, naked to the waist, with his older, stronger, partially-clothed superior officer hovering over him, pinning his friend’s helpless body to the bed with his muscular thighs and holding down his wrists to immobilize his arms.

“Get the fuck off him!” Peter shouts, sprinting across the room. He grabs Yondu by the torso from behind and throws himself back in a valiant attempt to peel the older man off Kraglin’s prone body.

Caught off guard, Yondu falls backward onto the youth, who scrambles to hold him down, latching on to his back like a curled pill bug. Kraglin sits up, propped on his elbows, mouth open as he tries (and fails) to process the cause of their interruption.

 _This can’t be real_ , he thinks. _It’s a waking nightmare caused by hallucinogenic space dust or bad clams_.

“Run, Kraglin! I’ll hold him off!” Peter yells just as Yondu slips his grasp and rolls away. Peter follows, tackling the confused man to the ground.

“Oooof! Quill! Git the hell off’a me!” He orders, trying to subdue his wriggling assailant. He manages to flip the boy and place him in a choke hold.

“Hell no! You… you fucking rapist!” Peter rasps, his hands clawing at Yondu’s arm and face, trying to break his grip.

Getting over the shock of the rather abrupt end to earlier proceedings, Kraglin finds his voice: “Dammit, Pete! I wanted it, ya dumb bastard!”

Peter stops struggling to fix Kraglin with a confused gaze. “What?”

When Kraglin’s outburst finally registers, Peter’s eyes widen. “Oh. Ohhhhhh…. Oh shit.”

“Yeah,” Kraglin straightens the jumpsuit pooled at his waist, pushes his arms through the sleeves and zips up the front. “Can’t fuckin’ believe this. Fuckin’ cockblocker.”

Later, Peter and Kraglin sit in silence in an empty breakroom, looking anywhere else but at each other.

“So…” Kraglin begins, raising his arm to scratch the back of his head. He doesn’t know what to say in situations like this. He's not going to apologize, doesn’t even see the need to explain a consensual fling between two adults, but this is Pete, his friend, who hopefully won’t make a habit of assaulting his sexual partners.

“The rule is half your age plus seven,” Peter interrupts, solemnly shaking his head. “So if Yondu is about 60, that means you have to be 37 for dating him to not be gross. You’re going to have to wait 15 years. In the meantime, play the field a bit. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find someone better suited for you, someone you won’t need to be pushing around in a wheelchair in five years.”

 _This is not a negotiation._ Kraglin rolls his eyes. “Who says we’re dating? And ‘sides Cap’n ain’t that old. He’s like 40. Tops.”

“Dude! You’re 22. He’s almost twice your age! You have to wait…” Peter quickly does the math in his head, “Five years for it to be socially acceptable.”

“Yer math is off. In five years, Cap’n will be 45, and I’ll still be too young by yer reckonin’. I ain’t waiting… 10 years fer it to be right in yer eyes. We could all be dead by then,” Kraglin reasons. He’s not even too sure why Peter is so fixated on this seemingly-arbitrary rule. He’s pretty certain the Krylorian prostitute to whom Peter lost his virginity recently was at least ten years his senior, violating his own supposed rule.

“Still… Yondu? It had to be _Yondu_ of all people?” Peter asks, defeated. His feelings towards their physical relationship are easy to parse. Peter knows Yondu isn’t his dad, but he’s the closest thing he’s ever had to one, and as for Kraglin… Peter doesn’t have an older brother, but Kraglin often made him forget that fact. The thought of them having sex repulsed him, made him shudder to remember what little he had witnessed. However, much more complicated were his feelings towards a potential emotional relationship between the two. Simply put, he would have difficulty sharing either one of them with anyone, much less each other, and the idea of them as a couple made him feel left out, abandoned.

“What can I say? The sex is amazing. The things he can do…” Kraglin divulges, delighting in the way Peter’s body stills and stiffens as his face collapses into a sour expression. “I mean, I’ve been with my share o’ men, but that guy… he’s been around, an’ it shows. Fuck, if I didn’t know better, I’d say the gateway to paradise is blue and puckered.”

“Kraglinnn,” Peter whines, “Just stop. Stop describing your disturbing sex life with Yondu. No one’s asking you.”

“Yer the one what brought it up,” Kraglin counters. “Speakin’ o’ which, no blabbin’ to the crew. Cap’n wouldn’t much like it.”

“Dude. Red flag. He’s embarrassed to be seen with you in public,” Pete points out.

His face slipping into a scowl, Kraglin shoves Peter’s shoulder. “You obviously don’t understand Ravager politics,” he asserts a bit too forcefully.

“Sensitive much?” Peter asks, shoving back. “You know I’m right.”

Kraglin responds by pushing him, harder this time, toppling Pete over. Blinded by anger and no small measure of hurt, Peter launches himself at his best friend, catching him at his mid-section as they fall together in a tangled pile. Later, neither would agree on how it came to blows. Peter would claim it was Kraglin’s fault, who insisted he only retaliated when Peter elbowed him in the nose. _It’s not like it’s a small target. It’s impossible to miss_ , Peter argued, only to receive another punch for his troubles as the situation devolved yet again.

Afterwards, when Kraglin nicks some bruise balm for Pete’s black eye from med bay as an unspoken apology for that last pot shot and Peter helps him smear some on his back where he fell hard when Peter tackled him, they tentatively forgive each other, but Kraglin makes it clear his _thing_ with Yondu is off-limits to any negative commentary. Peter agrees to table the discussion, but still, he worries.

Clearly, he needs to save his friend from what is obviously a bad relationship, for his own good of course, which meant confronting a certain blue asshole. Alone. As per Kraglin’s implied request.

Unfortunately, for the next week, Yondu always seems to be around other people. If he hadn’t known better, Pete would have thought that he had conspired to avoid being alone in his presence, hoping the _situation_ would blow over.

Fat chance of that happening.

So instead, Peter needles Yondu, taking every chance to undermine his authority and curdle his mentor’s spirits, purposely goading Yondu into punishing him in order to force a frank private discussion about his recent belligerent behavior, specifically its underlying cause. More than once, Kraglin had tried to reign in his friend’s flagrant insubordination, but through repeated failure, he was forced to conclude Peter simply needed time to get used to their relationship.

“Quill. You stay put,” Yondu orders at the close of a particularly disastrous shift on the Bridge in which Peter had not-so-subtly insinuated he should fornicate with a rusty pair of wire cutters, and Yondu had gifted him a month’s worth of scrub duty and a nice set of darkening bruises across his abdomen for his trouble.

When the others file out, Yondu finally rounds on Peter. “All right, Quill. You’ve been backtalkin’ all week even more’an usual an’ lookin’ at me like I gifted yer music box to ol’ Tazie. You got somethin’ ya want’a say to me?”

“How could you?” Peter practically hisses.

“Yer goin’a have ta be a li’l more specific,” Yondu says, being deliberately obtuse. He’s as much a fan of this line of questioning as Kraglin had been.

“You know what I’m talking about. He’s my best friend and the only one even remotely close to my age on this damn rust-bucket,” he bites back.

“I ain’t stoppin’ ya from bein’ friends. Seems like a ‘you’ problem if ya ask me.”

“But why him?”

Yondu grunts noncommittally then turns away. “Stay out’a my affairs, Quill. It don’t concern you.”

“Fuck yeah, it does. I’m not that much younger than him! Are you planning to replace him with me when he gets too old? Is that your plan?” Pete accuses, acid in his tone.

Yondu did not expect _that_. He rears around to face Peter. “The fuck are ya goin’ on ‘bout now, boy?”

“Like when we were kids, and he taught me how to do all the jobs he got too big for? Is that what this is? Did you pick me because I was young and trainable and pretty? Well, I’m not going to go along with it without a fight.”

Yondu scowls. “Yer just an annoyin’ kid. I ain’t goin’a fight chu, Quill. Ain’t goin’ ta fuck ya, neither.”

“Is that what you told his father when you picked up Kraglin?”

Yondu strikes him then, closed fist hard against cheek, but when Peter gears up for yet another brawl, bruised face radiating betrayal and naked loathing for his mentor, Yondu feels the fight drain out of him.

“Ya don’t know shit ‘bout any of it. Now, git the fuck out,” he says, low and deadly, “Go on. Git.”

Peter leaves but not before kicking Yondu’s console like a petulant child, dislodging some of his favorite trinkets from their place on his dash and crashing them to the floor.

Now alone, Yondu’s face pinches in displeasure as he slowly picks up the unbroken ones and rearranges them along the console then uses his boot to crush the splintered remains of the others, grinding it through the grate to the drainage system below. Let Quill deal with it later when he’s on scrubs for the next month. With luck, he’ll prick his baby skin on the shards and get an infection, Yondu thinks, maybe even lose a limb to some necrotizing bacteria.

Huh.

...Perhaps he should have Taserface deal with it instead next time the man crossed him.

 

* * *

 

“You seem quiet, sir,” Kraglin observes later that night.

“S’nothing. Quill’s just bein’ a contrary li’l bastard, been runnin’ his mouth again,” Yondu says, dropping heavily into his chair.

Kraglin sighs. “An’ in other news, space is cold. Now, why don’t chu le’ me unzip ya so I can warm you up, yeah? I know ya like it when I ‘mouth’ you off,” he says, settling between Yondu’s spread thighs.

As Kraglin frees his cock from the confines of his pants, Yondu cradles his head in one hand, fondly running calloused fingers through Kraglin’s Mohawk, short like his own crystalline crest.

_Is that what you told his father when you picked up Kraglin?_

Kraglin doesn’t resemble his father. Yondu can almost tell what Brista must have looked like by looking at her son: long face terminating in a small chin and big blue eyes with a prominent aquiline nose. No, Kraglin didn’t get much from Tellarune, but he did get his hands. Fingers long and thin, knobbly at the joints, skin thick with calluses across the palm betraying a rough life. Kraglin’s hand wraps around his dick now, but all Yondu can think about is how he can still feel similar hands on his bare skin as Tellarune and him wrestled and sparred hardscrabble on the ground, neither wanting to yield to the other, back when they both counted themselves amongst Stakar’s ranks. He remembers how Kraglin’s father had beat fist against chest to Yondu’s Ravager Flame when he accepted the First Mate position, and how he beat it still in the wake of their exile – always steadfast, never wavering. How many times had those hands passed him a friendly beer he didn’t have to think twice about ingesting for fear of poison? How many times had they comforted him in the face of failure? Yondu recalls how Tellarune’s steady hands shook grasping his arm the last time, for the very last time ever, as his eyes went blind and his grip slack.

“Uh… Cap’n? I can try something else if this ain’t doin’ nothin’ fer ya,” Kraglin offers as Yondu’s dick remains frustratingly flaccid to his touch. Kraglin is no wilting virgin. He knows how to get a guy off, but he’d be lying if he said the limp member before him didn’t rattle his confidence, just a bit. This blowjob is not off to a promising start. Maybe if–

“Naw. I think I’m done,” Yondu says, pushing Kraglin away firmly so he can rise and zip up his pants.

“Um… Okay. Maybe next time,” Kraglin responds from his seat on the floor, surprised at the sudden turn of events. Sure, erectile dysfunction is embarrassing, but it didn’t warrant Yondu’s brusque, chilly attitude.

“Yer not gittin’ it. This thing we doin’? All of it. I’m done. It’s over.” He doesn’t look at Kraglin, as he retrieves his coat, lightly dusting off the worn leather before pulling it on.

“…What? What did I do?” Kraglin scrambles to his feet to block Yondu’s abrupt exit.

“Nothin’. It was fun while it lasted, but I just don’t want’a do it no more. That’s really all there is to it,” he says as he sidesteps his now ex-lover. Kraglin grabs hold of his arm to stay him in his desperation.

It can’t end like this. The nights spent in Yondu’s bed, the countless times he had held Yondu through screaming terrors, the secrets they shared whispered in the dark about sharp whips cleaving blue flesh, orloni skittering across concrete, and that gnawing, aching hunger in that dying slave ship and in the wake of his mother's death… Had it all meant nothing to him? Kraglin wants to shout, to cry, to beg Yondu to reconsider. He wants to push him up against the wall, hold him close in a cage of arms, and kiss him senseless, make him remember that he felt something for him. Once. Whatever happened to bring about the end, it’s not irreparable. Kraglin can fix it.

“But–“ he begins.

“If one o’ us wants to walk, we stop. No questions asked, no explanation needed, ‘member?” He sighs then coldly meets Kraglin’s eyes. “You an’ me… We had a good run, Kraglin. Don’t ruin it by makin’ this difficult.”

Kraglin lets go, silent and head hung low.

Yondu walks out of his quarters, pausing at the threshold. “You got ten minutes ta gather yer stuff an’ git out,” he says over his shoulder before exiting.

He doesn’t look back.


	12. The Talk (Redux)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu moves on; Kraglin has trouble doing the same. Peter realizes his mistake too late, while Yondu gets the shovel talk from an unlikely source.

It’s unbearable. Infuriating, really.

Kraglin watches Yondu chat up the first half-decent prospect who approaches him in this grungy bar, where the lighting is almost as bad as their liquor. The other man is possibly Krylorian, or perhaps Xandarian. It’s honestly hard to tell with the red backlighting. Cap’n is dark-purple as a bruise, but Kraglin can just make out the golden shine of his teeth as he chuckles at something the Xandarian (Krylorian?) had said, just before the other man pays their tab and both walk out into the night.

Kraglin waits outside Yondu’s M-ship, ostensibly to talk, but when Yondu staggers back a couple hours later, wobbly-legged and stinking of rank body odor and salty sex, a hitch in his normally-fluid swagger, Kraglin knows exactly what had occurred.

“You fucked ‘im,” he states woodenly. He’s not stupid. When he saw Cap’n leave the bar with that stranger, he knew the likely outcome, but he had thought he needed to see it, for confirmation, for closure. Perhaps if he knew for certain, he could let him go. However, all he feels now is rage bubbling over a sea of hurt.

“Ain’t none o’ yer business no more.” Yondu pushes past him to reach the access panel.

“But why?” Kraglin insists, his voice harsh, disbelieving.

“’Cause I could,” he replies callously. “’Cause I wanted to.”

The door glides open. Yondu steps across the threshold, turning to face Kraglin; his eyes are cold, his face wearing its customary resting scowl. “So, you can stop lookin’ at me like a lost pup now. I meant it when I told chu it’s over.”

Kraglin says nothing as the door slides closed. When the thrusters engage several minutes later, he backs up quickly to avoid the burn-off. He’s too impaired by drink, by anger, by that deep ache in his chest, to notice that the ship doesn’t lift until he’s clear.

 _It’s been five short days,_ he thinks instead. _Five._

Had their relationship meant so little to Yondu that he couldn’t have curbed his sexual appetites for even a single week? Hadn’t the abrupt break-up dampened his libido just a bit? Didn’t he feel a modicum of the need for closure that weighed heavy on his ex-whatever-they-were? Kraglin internally berates himself for the stupidity of that last musing. Of course Yondu didn’t. He had been the one to end things after all. He had all the closure he needed, while Kraglin was left searching for answers that likely didn’t exist to questions that probably never even mattered to the other man.

Peter tries to cheer him up later on the Eclector.

“I told you Yondu was a creep. And a jerk. I just knew he was going to break your heart.”

He’s not very good at it, but at least he brought iced cream from his foray planetside.

Kraglin digs into the frozen treat, aiming for the sweet brown ripples spun throughout the softening cream. “Yeah, well, good for you. You can have a side-business tellin’ the future. Here’s a tip: Nothin’ lasts, an’ we’re all goin’a die alone.”

“Kraglin… you’ll find someone better–”

“Ain’t no one better–”

“Someone who appreciates you for who you are. Guys like Yondu… They’re predators. They’re just looking for someone young, to make them feel young again, you know? It didn’t even matter that you were the son of his first mate. Once you got a bit older, he was always going to trade you in for an even younger model. It’s like I was telling him: he needs to stop preying on younger men like us. It’s fucking creepy, dude.”

Kraglin’s spoon pauses halfway to his mouth then clatters to the floor, splattering thickened sugar over his boots.

“You. Said. _What._ ” Kraglin says, deadly steel in his voice. He squishes the carton in his grip, the melted cream spurting out the open top to run sticky over his hand. He holds on to it to prevent himself from similarly wringing Pete’s neck before the boy can confess to what he had done. He turns to confront the interloper who had ruined everything, seething wrath and betrayal naked on his face.

A lesser man would cower. A smarter man would backpedal. Peter does neither. “He was taking advantage of you. Can’t you see that?”

Kraglin throws the carton splat against the opposite wall.

“This ain’t got nothin’ to do with my old man. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, neither. I’ve wanted him since forever, an’… I can’t believe… How could chu?” Kraglin shouts, red with righteous fury. _Pete had no right._ “We… I… Yer my friend. I defend you. I trusted you!”

“Trusted me?” Peter repeats, affronted by his outright lie. “Hell no, you didn’t fucking trust me! You were sneaking around for months because _he_ was ashamed of messing around with his best friend’s kid. He was using you, man, and when he got bored, he was going to cast you aside without considering what it would do to you because all he cares about is himself. I was protecting you!”

Kraglin is not one to back down. He gets up in Peter’s face, becoming deathly calm. “And why would I tell you shit, huh? I knew you were going to act like this. I knew it ‘cause yer a jealous li’l fucker.”

“Jealous? Of you?” he huffs out. “I don’t want to fuck Yondu. Don’t be fucking gross.”

“Not Me. Cap’n.”

Peter’s disgusted expression clearly broadcasts that the insinuation he is jealous of _Yondu_ and secretly wants to fuck his pseudo-brother is no less repulsive to him, so Kraglin clarifies, “Yer jealous I have someone besides you ‘cause in yer sick pathetic li’l mind, I ain’t allowed to have somethin’ fer myself, somethin’ just fer me, _without_ li’l Petey always taggin’ along.” He rages before his voice falls quiet. “Well, guess what? I don’t want’a talk to ya ever again. As far as I’m concerned, we’re coworkers. Strictly professional.”

Peter steps forward to grab his elbow. “Kraglin–“

He pulls away, snapping, “No. Yer goin’a stay away from me an’ out’a my life, or I’ll make ya sorry.”

 

* * *

 

Kraglin pointedly refuses to join him at mess hall, so on the third day after their falling-out, Peter settles down next to Yondu, finding him preferable to the other Ravagers, who invariably tease, threaten, and attempt to steal the best parts of his meals.

The older man spares him a cursory glance before turning back to his rations. If he is surprised Peter had chosen his presence over anyone else’s after their last conversation, he doesn’t show it. However, when Yondu slides over a spare sweet ration bar towards Peter, the boy looks at him in open surprise.

“I don’t like these ones,” Yondu explains gruffly. They’re also Peter’s favorite, he neglects to mention.

“Thanks.”

Yondu simply grunts in return.

Later, Yondu tentatively allows Peter back on navigation duty. As they review star charts together, Yondu teaches him how to take advantage of gravitational wrinkles to slingshot the Eclector around planets and star systems in order to reduce their fuel usage. As they’re wrapping up, Peter rises to leave when something unexpected catches his eye. Sitting so close next to Yondu, he has an excellent view of the left side of his head. That’s the only reason he notices it.

Generally speaking, he tries not to examine Yondu too carefully. Not only is the man even uglier and grimier upon closer inspection, but making direct eye contact is liable to attract more attention to himself in the form of additional chores or punishment. However, right now, he’s staring at the third earring on the man’s left ear. It’s small, old, and achingly familiar.

 _Kraglin wouldn’t,_ he hopes.

“What’s that?” he asks instead, pointing at the man’s ear. “The small looped one,” he further states, so there can be no mistake as to which one he is referring to.

Yondu is purposely nonchalant. “This ol’ thing? Just one o’ my earrings. Always had it.”

“No, that one’s new,” Peter insists.

“Hm… prob’ly picked it up on our last job on Divant six months back,” Yondu lies. “It’s a bit small fer my taste. Been meanin’ to replace it.”

He touches it with some delicacy and no small measure of fondness in such a way that Peter realizes exactly what it, and by extension his relationship with Kraglin, meant to the man.

“…Uh huh,” Peter manages weakly.

“Report to Tullk fer scrub duty,” Yondu bites back, suddenly irked with the boy.

“What? Why?”

He diverts his attention back to his paperwork. “If ya got time to appraise m’ gold, you’ve got time ta mop the bogs.”

Peter walks towards the door, but hesitates at the threshold. “You know… that thing… with Kraglin?”

“I said git,” Yondu says firmly before puckering his mouth in pre-whistle.

Peter quickly exits then. He knows he stretched his luck thin by even broaching the topic when the arrow darts past his ear in warning, the radiation searing hot as it bypasses him completely and whips back to its master.

 

* * *

 

Tullk leans on the mop handle as he supervises Peter’s discipline for the eighth consecutive day. He doesn’t know what the boy had done to earn Cap’n’s wrath, but Yondu had instructed him to allow Quill only the smallest of cleaning apparatuses. Presently, Peter is hunched over on his hands and knees with an old toothbrush, scrubbing the piss-soaked cracks between the metal plate flooring of the bogs located in a high-traffic sector. The only sound from Peter is the _scrub-scrub-scrub_ of soft bristle against steel. He’s much quieter than he had been the prior week of scrub duty, when he had been angry and cussing up a storm, grinding down eight toothbrushes in as many hours with how hard he had been pressing. His current state is rather disappointing. Tullk had thought Peter’s spirit would have lasted longer under such tedious, but nontorturous, punishment. He must have gravely underestimated the boy’s moxie.

_Scrub-scrub-scrub._

“Tullk… If you fucked up real bad and destroyed someone’s life, how would you fix it?” Peter finally asks; his voice quiet, contemplative.

 _Ah, tha’ mus’ be the rub,_ Tullk thinks. _The lad’s too sof’ fer his own good._

“Ye don’t,” he responds. “When yer aimin’ at someone’s chest, innae way to undo pullin’ the trigger. Don’ worry too much abou’ it. Ain’ a man on this ship hasn’ killed someone.”

“What if they’re not dead? What if you just did something that you regret and want to make it right, but they aren’t talking to you?” Peter clarifies. He stops scrubbing to look up at Tullk. “Is there like a gift basket I can send? An edible arrangement maybe?”

Tullk shrugs. “Anythin’s eat-able if yer hungry ‘nough.”

“That’s not…” Peter puffs out his cheeks then exhales loudly, before continuing, “Okay, I’ve got this… friend who has another friend who was in a relationship with someone else… someone way _way_ older. I mean, the guy was positively geriatric.”

Peter mistakes Tullk’s quirked brow for concurrence. “Yeah, I know, totally gross. Anyways, my friend sort of sunk their relationship and now realizes that maybe there was something there, and he feels really bad about how it all went down. Now, the only person my friend can turn to is me, and I’m not exactly well-versed in these types of situations, so…. What would you do?”

Tullk is dumbfounded into momentary silence before answering. “… Yer the reason Cap’n’s in such a murd’rous mood?”

There’s a pause before Peter can mask his expression of honest guilt with indignant surprise. “Who said anything about Yondu?” he tries, and fails, to sound innocent.

Tullk crosses his arms, gracing him with the look of all fathers towards deceitful children. _Do you really think I’m that stupid?_ It screams.

Peter knows when he’s caught. He might as well fess up now so he can at least get some much-needed advice. “Okay, fine, yes. I fucked up Yondu’s _thing_ –“

“With Kraglin.”

Peter is flabbergasted. “How did you… Damn it – did everyone know besides me? – Anyways, I think I might have made a slight miscalculation in doing that. I think that maybe they were both… happy, weirdly enough, but Yondu doesn’t want to hear it, and Kraglin is not talking to me at all, and I just want everything to go back to the way it was.”

It’s a right mess, but there’s nothing for it. Tullk looks down and takes a big sigh. “Jus’ stay out’a it. I’ve never known Cap’n to go back on a decision, so wha’s done is done.”

 

* * *

 

For his part, Tullk had noticed that something had been off about Kraglin. In hindsight, the lad had been secluding himself, avoiding Peter and Yondu both. To the young man’s credit, he had managed to keep his personal feelings under wraps, choosing instead to approach the job with a sort of cool professionalism. Like a true Ravager, Kraglin could bury it deep. Tullk is somewhat impressed he hadn’t become a self-destructive puddle upon the dissolution of what seemed to be his first real relationship…

“An’ right ‘ere, I put in an order fer a triple-stuffed seat. Considerin’ how rough you’ve been ridin’ yer stick shift recently, thought chu could use the extra cushion,” Kraglin says blandly with an undercurrent of vindictiveness as he hands Yondu the work order.

…Or perhaps he had spoken too soon.

Crossing his arms, Kraglin drawls on. “Plus, yer shock absorbers are already shot due to age, wearin’ down with the ole bump an’ grind. I’d tell ya to take it easy on the poor girl, but chu won’t.”

“What’re you implyin’, Obfonteri?”

“Nothin’ sir. Jus’ need approval on the parts,” Kraglin replies. “Or should I ask Quill to sign off on it fer ya?”

Yondu slits his eyes at Kraglin, his lips forming pre-whistle at his subordinate’s snark, but he hesitates, as if weighing whether Kraglin would back down, and if not, whether he was prepared to carry out the implied threat when the man failed to sufficiently grovel for forgiveness.

He signs off on the order instead.

Kraglin tucks the holopad under his arm. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Yeah… back to work with ya.”

As Kraglin ambles away, his pace quickened by an angry determination, Yondu’s gaze lingers on the departing figure from the corner of his eye. There's irritation but also affection there. It's subtle, unless you were looking closely at Cap’n, as Tullk is doing now.

He knows he’s probably going to regret this.

“If yer goin’a open tha’ can o’ worms, ye be’er be sure. None o’ tha’ wishy-washy shite,” Tullk tells him.

Yondu diverts his narrowed eyes towards the new target of his misplaced displeasure, challenging the man, “Ya got somethin’ ya want to say ta me?”

“Kraglin may be Rue’s boy, but he ain’ a child. Hasn’ been fer a while,” Tullk says evenly. At Yondu’s stunned expression transitioning into annoyance, he continues unperturbed, “It were kinnae obvious, Cap’n.”

“You got’a point?”

At least Yondu isn’t insulting his intelligence with absurd denials.

“Poin’ is yer my Cap’n an’ I’ll follow ye inta the blackness o’ the Great Beyon’ with no colors to ligh’ our passin’ an’ no horns to lead the way, but yer also my friend. So I’m goin’a say my piece as yer friend: The lad’s grown an’ he can make his own decisions... his own mistakes, too, but if ye decide to make ano’er go fer Tellarune’s son, then break tha’ lad’s heart again, an’ I’ll break tha’ purty smile o’ yer’s.”

“You threatenin’ me?” Yondu says. There’s warning in his tone, for the man wise enough to heed it.

That man has never been Tullk.

“On behalf o’ a dearly-depar’ed mutual friend: Yeah. Fer old times’ sake, ye understan’.”

“I should brig ya.”

“Prob’ly, but ye won’,” Tullk says, throwing an arm around his captain’s shoulders, harkening back to earlier days when he called Yondu by name.

Yondu takes one look at his old friend’s broad, easy smile. He knows Tullk. The man is loud, boisterous, but most importantly, loyal to a fault. He might have the stones and impulsivity to follow through on his bluff, but he’d likely pull his punches if Yondu was on the receiving end of them. Really, Yondu knew the threat was little more than hot air and not true mutiny.

Perhaps he should let it slide. Just this once.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Yondu, have you seen Tullk? I need another pack of these,” Peter asks, holding up a set of ten grubby piss-covered toothbrushes, the bristles mangled and bent at odd angles to the base.

“The brig,” Yondu replies offhandedly while busy reviewing the take of their last job and parsing out funds to various expenses.

Peter’s shoulders droop as he sighs, “What’d he do this time?”

“Insubordination," Yondu snaps. "Now git yerself a real scrub brush from the janitorial closet an’ git back to work ‘fore I order ya ta keep that jackass company.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm already about a quarter of the way through the next chapter. It's either going to be a long conclusion or I might split it up into two chapters posted days apart. We're coming to the end, people. I hope you're enjoying the ride :)


	13. Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter ropes in Tullk to make things right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter became too long, so I had to split it. The very last chapter is 85% complete. I’ll post in a few days.

“You know what we have to do, right?” Peter propositions Tullk after his stint in the brig. They’re both on their knees, scrub brushes in hand, scraping away at the urine scale staining the floor in front of the piss trough.

“We ain’t shankin’ Cap’n. Tha’s mutiny, lad, an’ I won’ abide by it,” Tullk responds sternly. He leverages the weight of his entire torso to press down harder, scrubbing ever faster in frustration at his inability to remove the brownish blooms speckling the rusted metal. At this rate, he’ll polish the surrounding area to a shiny mirror finish before he’s able to lessen the discoloration.

“What the… Of course not,” Peter says. How come that’s the go-to solution for everyone on the Eclector? The crew seriously lacked imagination. “We have to get Kraglin and Yondu back together! Obviously…”

“Now _tha’_ is crazy talk.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s ludicrous that Kraglin would want to bone the old man on a long-term basis, or at all even. I think he must either have exceptionally low standards or be extremely near-sighted to not see how ugly Yondu really is, but what choice do we have?”

“We could stay out’a it. It’ll blow o’er in time, ye will see.” Even Cap’n got over Marty… eventually… after years of drinking and random hookups. Now that Tullk stopped to consider it, Cap’n did get around a lot, but he can’t remember him having a sustained arrangement with _anyone_ since Marty, until Kraglin, that is.

“Yeah, and then Yondu will straight up murder Kraglin. You’ve seen how the guy’s been acting? Some of his behavior is damn near suicidal. Yondu’s been giving him a pass for now, but how long do you think that’s going to last before he tires of it or Kraglin catches him on a bad day?” Peter points out.

Tullk is loathe to admit it, but the kid makes sense.

Carefully observing the older man, Peter knows he’s piqued the concern of what little conscience Tullk possesses. He just needs to exploit that soft spot, for Kraglin’s sake. “Look, I’ve seen how you are with Kraglin. You care, even though you shouldn’t… So, I’m asking you: You want him to live, right?”

The squeak and screech of Tullk’s bristle brush against metal slows as he contemplates the situation.

“…Alrigh’ lad, I’m listenin’. Ye got ‘til I move on from this ‘ere spo’,” he finally allows, picking up the pace once again.

Peter glances down at the stain Tullk has taken to furiously scrubbing. It’s not one shade lighter than it had been when he started five minutes prior. Peter is not worried. He won’t need the entire hour to convince the man.

 

* * *

 

“The two o’ us, we got a mission,” Tullk tells Kraglin later. “Jus’ came down the pike. Property dispu’e. Some baron’s payin’ us ta acquire a li’l trinket he los’ in’a divorce. Willin’ ta pay a nigh high price fer retrieval.”

“What’d they take?” Kraglin asks. “Family heirloom?”

“Close… His tadger. Seems the missus ran off with it.”

 _Ouch._ Kraglin instinctively curls around his groin at the thought, _but_ he had to give credit where credit is due. The woman had the right idea.

“It were de’achable,” Tullk clarifies, trying to move the other man along. It isn’t the worst job they’d ever taken, and any STIs that could conceivably be caught from their temporary cargo would likely be cleared out within a couple weeks, unlike Peter’s inexplicable continued existence on the Eclector.

Kraglin stays rooted to the spot, arms crossed. “It’s just the two o’ us, right?” he hedges. “No Quill.”

“Naw, the boyal’s goin’ with Cap’n. He’s finally off scrubs, an’ itchin’ to git off the Eclector.” Tullk herds him towards the M-ship docks. He drops his voice. “’Sides, it’s clear ye can use a li’l break away from the Eclector yerself ‘fore Cap’n spaces ye fer insubordination.”

“Were it that obvious?”

“As obvious as a bilgesnipe in’a glass house.”

 

* * *

 

At Tullk’s insistence, Kraglin had shaved and showered for his cover story as the young new pool boy, fresh off some third-rate service colony, wide-eyed and available for seduction by the newly-single divorcee. Unfortunately, she’s nothing like either of them had expected.

“You would not be able to keep up with me, young man,” Baroness Byford says, after Kraglin had executed what he thought was a credible performance of a young ingénue hopelessly infatuated by the sophistication of a captivating (but lonely) older woman. She’s reclining across a chaise lounge, her sharp chin nestled atop two sets of thin, wrinkled scythe-like arms folded neatly over each other along the raised side. Her unnervingly-large glossy eyes, smooth and black as volcanic glass, bore into him, only occasionally blinking via translucent vertical eyelids.

“I think you’d be surprised by m’ stamina, Miss,” Kraglin tries again.

Her mock laughter sounds of bells. “You flatter yourself, darling, but I would split you in two.”

“Is that a challenge?” The way she said it didn’t sound figurative, but Kraglin is beyond caring.

“It’s a polite ‘no,’ but could I interest you in a more forceful version?” She offers him.

“Might like it.”

“You will not. It involves immediate termination and removal from the premises.” Her voice is even, civil yet firm in her decision. “Would you prefer that route?”

“No, Ma’am,” Kraglin says, his gaze dropping to his feet like a scolded schoolboy.

“I was ‘Miss’ earlier.”

Kraglin shrugs, pocketing his hands. “Yeah, well… just tryin’a be polite, Ma – I mean Miss. I hear tell yer husband did ya dirty, an’ thought maybe…”

“Maybe I would be sad and vulnerable to any young upstart who happened to wander into my purview?”

“Well, no, Miss,” he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortable under that steady gaze. “It’s just… It can git mighty lonesome after yer main squeeze ditches ya, an’ sometimes, it’s nice to be wanted after. So ya know yer worth somethin’ to someone.”

She clucks her tongue in agitation. “I am worth much more regardless of what that cad decides. He does not determine my value.”

“Well, I know that, but sometimes, what chu know ain’t how ya feel.”

“It sounds like you are speaking from experience,” Baroness Byford observes, not unkindly.

“Naw, it was…” _mutual,_ he wants to lie, but then he looks at her. Standing before a stranger he will never see again with a falsified past and borrowed name, somehow it is easier for him to be honest. “Actually, yeah, and it sucks. I think they liked me fer a while, but I was always the one what wanted more, who cared more. Sometimes, I want to hurt ‘em like they hurt me, ya know? But I don’t think that’s possible, all things considerin’.”

“Yes, the urge to stoop to their level can be strong, but sometimes the best revenge is living well after them,” she advises, feigning a sudden cool interest in her sharp claws. “It also does not hurt to take a thing or two they will sorely miss.”

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, Kraglin is slouching on the floor in front and to the left of the baroness who has taken to sitting up prim and proper to one side of the elegant sofa as she listens to his tale.

“…An’ then, just like that, they tell me I got ten minutes to git the fu- I mean… to git out,” Kraglin complains, he rubs the back of his neck as he lifts his head to peer up at her. “I wanted to beg ‘em not to go. I ain’t proud o’ that.”

“You poor dear,” she says, lightly stroking his hair.

“That wasn’t even the worst part. Now, they pretend like we weren’t ever nothin’ at all. I ain’t ever allowed to talk ‘bout it with no one neither, ‘cept maybe the kid, an’ I refuse ta talk to that li’l cocksuck- I mean assho- I mean… well, you git the idea. I thought we were… but it’s all in the past now.”

“Harodd never could keep it in his pants, which is why I had to confiscate it,” the baroness adds as she pats her hapless companion on the shoulder. A slight smile graces her angular features at the memory of that particular victory.

Kraglin leans back to look at her over his shoulder. “If ya don’t mind my sayin’, you’ve got quite the set o’ stones on ya, Miss, an’ I ain’t even talkin’ yer jewelry.”

“Call me Myla.”

“Alrigh’… Myla,” he plants his feet on the ground then curls up to a crouch before straightening up to his full height. “Well, I think I should be heading out now. Pool ain’t goin’a clean itself.”

“Yes, you go on now, dear, and I hope you are able to rise above your heartache, or at the very least, capture your own worthy trophy from the cruel rapscallion.”

“Thanks Myla. I guess I’ll see ya around.” He won’t, but he is grateful to her for listening and providing what comfort she could. He supposes he respects her, even likes her a little. Kraglin stands at the door, uncertain how one should comport themselves in the presence of an employer from the upper-echelons of society, so he bows incrementally, clumsily, before exiting the formal drawing room.

By the time he meets up with Tullk outside in the garden, he has had a change of heart. “I don’t think she’s goin’a take the bait, an’ ‘sides, I don’t think her ex deserves his dick back. The woman earned it.”

“Sorry to hear tha’,” Tullk drapes an arm around Kraglin’s shoulder as he leads him off the property. “’Cause I nicked it while ye was distractin’  her.”

“What the fuck?” Kraglin whispers angrily, “Then why did I have ta go through all this?” He rubs his shorn chin and tries to smooth his frizzled hair Tullk had insisted he clean with their most stringent detergents. He had just worked up a good coating of natural oils to slick it up, too, and now all that hard work is ruined.

Tullk shrugs. “Don’ look at me like tha’. Ye was in need o’ a bit o’ soap an’ perhaps a li’l nookie on the side if ye could manage it.” He stops momentarily to appraise the younger man, noticing his marginally-improved appearance and attitude. “It’s a good look on ye, by the by.”

“…Asshole,” Kraglin mutters. “I still think you should put that dick back where ya found it.”

“Sorry, lad. I’m the senior officer on this mission, an’ I say we cash in.” He doesn’t sound apologetic in the least.

Kraglin sighs. “Can I at least see what we came all this way fer?” he asks, his voice casual.

Tullk shakes his head. “Don’ take this the wrong way, but no.”

“Why not?”

“Ye are goin’a try an’ return it. I can see it in yer face,” he states matter-of-factly.

Kraglin rolls his eyes. “I swear I ain’t. I jus’ want’a take a gander at some weird alien dick. C’mon, I ain’t never seen the detachable type in person an’ I don’t feel like payin’ fer the privilege considerin’ I ain’t even inta that.”

“…Alrigh’, Kraglin, but only ‘cause ye asked nice an’ it does look a tad odd,” Tullk says, strangely amenable to sharing the experience of ogling bizarre genitalia with the younger man. He pulls the bagged item out of one of his interior coat pockets. It’s long, curved, and disturbingly veiny with what looks like a hard opalescent exoskeleton encapsulating the member.

Kraglin whistles low. “Well, ain’t that someth–“ he snatches the appendage from Tullk’s loose grip mid-sentence, tossing it over a hedge before the other man can react.

Unfortunately, the sheen of the twirling penis catches the attention of Baroness Byford’s large crocodilian hound, alerting it to their location.

“Ye gave me yer word!” Tullk screams as both run away from the long jaws of the aptly-named Snappy.

“Since when has that meant jack shit?” Kraglin yells back as they lunge toward a high fence, quickly scaling the brick façade to escape the pursuing monstrosity.

Bent over to catch their breath on the other side, Tullk glares daggers at the young man beside him. He knew Kraglin was on a self-destructive kick, but to drag Tullk down with him? It was getting a mite ridiculous.

“Ye will be the death o’ me yet,” he hisses.

Still defiant, Kraglin gripes, “I _told_ ya to put it back.”

 

* * *

 

“Let me out!”

“Nothin’ doin’, Kraglin! Yer goin’a sit in there an’ think abou’ wha’ ye done,” Tullk yells from the other side of the cargo hold. “Ye could’a got the both o’ us mauled or worse! I’m lockin’ ye in there ‘til ye calm yer tits an’ can be reasonable-like.”

_BAM! BAM! BAM!_

If Kraglin keeps this up, he may well break his fist, Tullk thinks.

The frantic knocking subsides. “I am calm! I am the calmest!” Kraglin makes his case before shortly losing patience and clanging against the door once again. “Now let me out, you fucker!”

Tullk saunters over to the cockpit. He should feel a little guilty for what he is about to do, but then again…

“Stars, Tullk! Are ya that determined to be an asshole ‘bout this?!”

It serves Kraglin right.

Tullk sets the desired frequency and flicks on the transmitter.

_Showtime!_

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know why ya wanted to come here, son. It’s clear out’a our way,” Yondu grumbles to Peter from the pilot seat. The boy had insisted he take him to the Catseye Nebula. Yondu had refused, naturally, until Quill promised to polish his collectibles until they positively shined. He had meant the ones lining the captain’s console, but little did he know, Yondu intended to force him to clean every trinket he owned, including the boxes squirreled away under his bed and haphazardly stacked under his desk back in Cap’n’s quarters where dust bunnies bred wild and free.

After all, favors didn’t come cheap.

Oblivious to Yondu’s plans, Peter kicks back, planting his feet casually atop the dash as he looks out on the swirling yellow gaseous clouds, billowing and constricting in patterns similar to an oblong iris. “C’mon Yondu, don’t you think it’s kind of pretty.”

He grunts. He’d seen better. In fact, now that he considered it, _Quill_ had seen better. “I’m ‘bout ready ta git goin’.”

“Aww, but we just got here!” Peter’s whine is grating to his mentor’s ears. He had hoped Quill would outgrow the annoying habit once he came of age, but it seemed to be a permanent feature of his personality, unfortunately.

He’s about to issue a searing retort on the boy’s immaturity and inability to follow simple orders when the transmitter crackles to life.

“This is the Aurora. Our propulsion system’s down, so’s primary life suppor’. Coordinates 1-4-G-7-3-3-T. We’re in need o’ assis’ance if ye can hear us,” came the emergent plea.

“The Aurora? Isn’t that one of our’s?” Peter asks, moderately concerned. He sits up, reaching over to flip the switch and open communications.

Yondu slaps his hand away. “Ya don’t touch another man’s radio, ya hear?” he says before flipping it on himself.

Peter turns a sour face to him while rubbing his aching wrist. “You didn’t have to hit me,” he complains petulantly.

“Only way you’ll learn,” Yondu replies off-handedly before addressing the issue at hand. “Tullk, what’re those coordinates again?”

“Cap’n?” There’s a pause on the line while Tullk collects himself. “Coordinates 1-4-G-7-3-3-T. An’ hurry. Kraglin’s down. I don’ know how long he’s got.”

There’s a long pause while Peter watches Yondu’s stoic expression, the only hint of distress being a slight flaring of his nostrils.

“We ain’t far from yer location. We’ll be there right quick, an’ Tullk… keep the man alive.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

Yondu clicks off, quickly entering the coordinates into their navigation system.

“Do you think…” Peter begins to say, his tone edged in fear for his one-time friend.

“Quiet Quill! I’m tryin’a concentrate,” he barks back.

Peter clams up immediately as they shift into hyperdrive.

 

* * *

 

Quill refuses to enter the Aurora, not wanting to see Kraglin in such a mangled state, bloodied and broken. _I couldn’t possibly. I’ll be traumatized forever,_ he had declared rather dramatically. _You’ll regret not seein’ ‘im,_ Yondu had tried to reason with the hysterical man-child as he attempted to drag him out. _I’m not going!_ Quill had insisted, digging in his heels and clawing at the door frame to stem any forward progress.

Yondu doesn’t have time to force compliance, not with Kraglin potentially bleeding out before he could even…

No.

He doesn’t even want to consider whether he had arrived too late.

When Yondu rendezvous with the Aurora, creating a temporary bridge to board from a side hatch, he’s met by Tullk on the other side.

“He’s just through there,” Tullk whispers, indicating the crew’s shared living quarters. “He’s calmed down some. Accep’ance kickin’ in, I’d wager. I’ll leave ye to yer privacy… so ye can say yer goodbyes in peace.”

Yondu only nods, not trusting himself to say any more as Tullk steps aside to make way for him.

Yondu pauses outside the cabin, apprehension and regret setting in. How could he let this happen again? What should he have done differently? What would… could… he say now? So many moments wasted, so many things left unsaid… would Kraglin even be coherent in his final moments to hear, to understand, his belated apology and other, more unspeakable sentiments.

The longer the seconds drag on, the slimmer the possibility for reconciliation, for forgiveness.

However, when he enters their living quarters, he finds both cots empty.

Yondu rifles through the mussed up covers _. Had he evaporated?_ He thinks frantically. _Shot himself with a disintegrator to avoid the worst of his suffering?_

“Kraglin?!”

“Cap’n?” Kraglin’s voice calls out from the other side of the cargo hold door. There’s rustling followed by loud banging, “Let me out, Cap’n!”

Yondu presses his palm to the access panel, unlocking the door to activate its smooth glide open. His euphoria at finding Kraglin alive is quickly diminished in short order by the sight of Kraglin’s face nearly apoplectic with rage and the sudden realization that Tullk had deceived him about the man’s condition for an unknown end.

“Where the fuck’s that rat bastard?” Kraglin hisses, pushing past Yondu to exit the cabin, stomping towards the now-empty cockpit. “Where the fuck is he?” he screams in frustration upon not finding the target of his ire.

Yondu stalks over to the closed side hatch, peering out to find the temporary bridge and his own M-ship absent. Everything falls into place: Quill’s adamant desire to see the rather-mediocre Catseye Nebula, conveniently close to this very location, his stubborn insistence on staying behind, and finally, Tullk’s uncharacteristic lie.

_Those sneaky sons of bitches._

 

* * *

 

“So… Did you get him to shower?” Peter asks Tullk as they spirit away on Yondu’s M-ship.

“Yeah, though he didn’ like it none, an’ I don’ much see the poin’ to it.”

“It’s all part of the seduction, Tullk. When you’re trapped with your ex after a breakup, you want to look better than ever and more-importantly _smell_ good. Trust me on this one,” Peter says, folding his arms behind his head to form a cushion of limbs as he leans back into his copilot’s chair. He glances over at the other man. “Hey… can I fly?”

“Naw, lad. I still ou’-rank ye,” Tullk grumbles. He hadn’t liked betraying Cap’n’s trust, but with Kraglin involved, he had little choice in the matter.

“It was worth a try,” Peter mumbles before speaking up. “So, you got the radio and hyperdrive, right?”

“Smashed ‘em both with a wrench,” Tullk confirms. “An’ I left a li’l present fer ‘em, too.”

“Good. Now they’ll be forced to work out their differences.”

“Or kill each other.”

Peter falls silent while Tullk locks in their next location. The coordinates are much too close to their current location to be the Eclector.

“Where are you taking us?” he asks.

“Though’ I’d swing by Pross. They have a nice li’l bro’hel I’d been meanin’ ta go to, an’ this may be my las’ chance ‘fore Cap’n murders the lot o’ us,” Tullk replies. Peter finds his fatalistic acceptance of their premature demises disturbing.

“Ye want in?” he offers.

“A full-grown-ass man and his young ward frequenting the red-light district together?” Peter points out. “Yeah, that’s not going to look strange at all.”

Tullk shrugs. “We could both be dead inside a week. Wha’ does it ma’er wha’ a gaggle o’ bawjaws think o’ us? Migh’ as well have one las’ hurrah ‘fore we go.”

“After he and Kraglin make up, Yondu won’t kill us… probably.” Peter says, but he doesn’t sound so sure. “Besides, I don’t think we’d be interested in the same type of brothels.” If he was going to die, he’d rather not waste his last remaining days in a predominately male brothel.

“Ah, well, we can always go to one o’ ‘em general-type places. Always been a tits-man myself, bu’ if dick’s what yer lookin’ fer, there’s plenty sellin’ where I aim ta go,” Tullk offers. He’s spent enough time amongst a crew of varied tastes to learn flexibility with his pleasure destinations.

“Wait… you’re into women?”

“Innae prac’ical, ‘specially on the Eclector, bu’ the cock wants wha’ it wants.” Tullk explains. “Can’t help the way I was born.” The Ravager lifestyle would have been so much easier if he did enjoy men in the carnal sense.

Peter is positively giddy to find a similarly-aligned party to discuss his favorite topic: Women. Kraglin and Yondu had both been uninterested in his ramblings and tastes, but Tullk… Tullk is straight, like him. Finally! A kindred spirit with whom he can relate. “You kidding me? I love women! They’re so pretty and soft in all the right places, and they smell nice–”

“An’ when ye git a righ’ strong lass with the power ta hold ye down ta step on yer balls jus’ enough ta where ye fear fer yer life… now that shite really gits me goin’,” Tullk says conversationally, as if his experiences and preferences were universal.

“…What?”

Tullk continues, “Have ta pay extra fer tha’, but wha’ the hell, I don’ got long ta live any how, ‘specially af’er the stun’ we jus’ pulled.”

 

* * *

 

“They should’a killed me, ‘cause when I git a hold’a ‘em, they goin’a wish they was dead,” Yondu rages, sorting through the remains of the Aurora’s shattered primary transmitter. “First, I’m goin’a fillet Tullk’s balls straight off’a his body. Cut ‘em off in thin strips then fry ‘em up an’ feed it to ‘im. An’ _Quill…_ Well, the boys’ ain’t never tasted Terran before so–”

“Oh hell no! We ain’t eatin’ Pete,” Kraglin interrupts him. Yondu finds Kraglin’s protective streak surprising though not completely unexpected, but then the man continues, “He ain’t gittin’ off that easy… Look, I got this skinnin’ knife I been meanin’ ta try out. Might make myself a nice pair o’ Terran-skin leather gloves. Maybe take a li’l from his arms an’ forehead so’s he sees it every time he looks in the mirror an’ remembers not to cross me. Kid don’t need all his skin, right?”

“Fuck no, we ain’t doin’ that, ya psycho! The fuck’s the matter with you?”

“Pete, obviously. That li’l asshole’s behind this, I know it,” Kraglin spits back, crossing his arms. “No way Tullk planned this on his lonesome. This scheme’s got Pete’s name all o’er it.”

“We ain’t scarrin’ him physical-like like that,” Yondu says, sliding into the pilot’s seat to enter the Eclector’s coordinates into their M-ship’s autopilot.

“Or emotionally. God forbid li’l baby Petey feel slightly uncomfortable ‘bout anythin’.”

“What’s that supposed ta mean?”

“’Xactly what it sounds like.” Kraglin drops into the copilot’s chair. “I mean, we had a good thing goin’, you an’ me, an’ the first time Pete opens his mouth, you call it off.”

“It was more complicated than that,” Yondu says quietly, subdued.

Kraglin sneers, “Oh really, so Pete didn’t tell ya to drop me ‘cause I’m too young fer ya?”

Yondu doesn’t confirm nor deny the charge, but his pokerface isn’t nearly as good under the circumstances.

“That’s what I thought.”

Turning to face his snippy companion, Yondu scowls. “So what of it? Maybe you was too young ‘cause the way yer handlin’ this right ‘ere, wouldn’t’a happened if you was older an’ more mature. Yer insinuations an’ backtalk, not ta mention the insubordination an’ disrespect? I let it go before out’a the kindness o’ my heart ‘cause I git that yer hurtin’, but all that shit? It stops right now.” He tries to flip on the hyperdrive, his irritation growing when it fails to engage before he investigates, finding the obvious problem immediately.

“You left me, just like that, like we was nothin’, like _I_ was nothin’. I mean…” Kraglin’s rage melts to a thin whisper, “Did chu ever even care? Just a li’l.”

“The hyperdrive’s shot. Unsalvageable,” Yondu deflects the question instead. “Why don’t chu be useful, an’ call in fer a pick up usin’ the emergency transmitter from that there side panel? Be faster’an tryin’a git back without a hyperdrive.”

 _So that’s how it’s going to be._ Kraglin swallows his bitterness, mentally shielding his vulnerable bits with detached practicality, resolving to concentrate on the next task and then the next until he makes it through this trial.

“Yes sir.”

He and Pete will have words after this… words punctuated by the boy’s screams as he carves up that soft, unblemished skin for a belt to match his new gloves.

He opens the indicated panel but stands motionless, at a loss for words at its contents.

Yondu stomps over. “What’s the hold-up? Did chu short-circuit yer bra–”

Stuffed inside, amongst the tangle of wires torn from the missing backup radio, is a large bottle of Horuz’s finest toilet hooch, several tubes of slick, and a box of condoms.

Perhaps Tullk would appreciate a nice Terran-skin leather eye-patch. It’s the least Kraglin could do after he sticks him in his good eye with his shiny new skinning knife.


	14. Can't Go Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stranded on a slow-moving M-ship, Yondu and Kraglin get plastered.

Without a functional hyperdrive, Yondu and Kraglin are forced to take the long route back. That means they’ll be together. Alone. For at least three days.

_Fuck._

Yondu is the first to pop open the bottle and take a deep draught before handing it over to Kraglin who does the same. There’s no way either of them is doing this sober.

Fortunately, the bottle is one of their more-generous sizes, and with rationing, it should allow both to get good and liquored up for at least two of those days.

Unfortunately, forced to suffer his most-recent ex-lover as his sole companion for the journey back, Yondu drinks far more than is wise. Kraglin keeps up, not wanting Cap’n to dip into his share of the limited booze. As a result, both are completely sloshed in mere hours with only a little less than half the bottle left.

“…An’ to this day, Retch thinks it was Brahl, but it were me. I wanted ta git back at ‘im fer swipin’ my off shift two weeks before, forcin’ me to work double back-to-back, ya see?” Kraglin slurs. He hadn’t thought it would scar, but… happy accidents and all that.

Yondu laughs, slipping further down into the pilot chair until his ass is almost off the edge. He grips the bottle in his right hand so it hangs between them, scrapping the grate below. “That’s why I always liked chu, Kraglin. Ya got stones an’ a mean streak a klik wide, but more’n that, the brains ta follow through. Yer goin’a make a fine officer one day, if you can control tha’ mouth o’ yer’s, that is.” Yondu takes another swig from the bottle and sets it down, his arm limp but still lightly grasping the neck.

“I have excellent control o’er my mouth. I didn’ hear no complaints when it was wrapped ‘round yer dick.”

“Well, ya couldn’t talk with yer mouth full, now could ya?”

“An’ all you could say was m’ name all breathy an’ purty-like.” Kraglin reaches across the divide to stroke Yondu’s upper arm. How long had it been since he’d been allowed to touch the other man? Much too long, he reckons.

Yondu pulls away. “Yeah well, that’s all passed now,” he grumbles.

“I jus’ don’ understand why it has ta be, Cap’n.” His own voice sounds like a whine to his ear, so he smooths it out to a more-even, more-adult timber when he lays out his case. “Clearly, Quill don’t even give a shit no more. He wouldn’t’a went to all the trouble o’ strandin’ us with condoms an’ slick if he did.”

“It ain’t about Quill,” Yondu states firmly.

The liquor must have loosened Kraglin’s tongue along with his inhibitions. That’s the only explanation he can muster for what he says next. “Fer the love o’… I ain’t blind an’ I ain’t stupid, so stop actin’ like I am. It’s jus’… why ya always got’a posture ‘round me like that, like ya don’t give two shits ‘bout nothin’ but credits? It’s me, Cap’n.”

His own temper rising to meet Kraglin’s, Yondu leans over to get in the other man’s face. “Fine. Ya want the truth, boy? Huh? Well, alrigh’, here it is: It’s yer daddy. I _cared_ about him a hell of a lot more’n I like to admit,” he blurts out. Kraglin draws back, disgust clear in his expression. He’s about to punch the other man square on the jaw, when Yondu’s face screws up into a matching look of revulsion.

He growls, “Fuckin’ stars… Not like that, like how you care about Quill – Don’t deny it – I got eyes, too, Kraglin.” He falls back in his chair, gazing into the void just beyond their windshield. “An’ ya know what else? He’s dead ‘cause o’ me. If it weren’t fer that whole Ego business, they’d’a never tried to double-cross us, an’ yer daddy? He would still be ‘ere.”

At Kraglin’s silence, Yondu’s head lolls over to stare directly at Rue’s boy. “You don’t look much like ‘im, though, an’ that’s a good thing. Wouldn’t’a took up wit’ chu if ya did. But sometimes ya act like him. He weren’t so stubborn as you, but he could be a real shithead sometimes. The three o’ us, we was thick as thieves back in the day, an’ I don’t know… I miss him, I reckon.”

“…What’s that got’a do with anythin’?” Kraglin finally asks, his voice guarded.

“He wouldn’t’a liked it, yer daddy. Be ‘bout as thrilled as I’d be if Tullk was fuckin’ Quill, I suppose.”

“So… yer sayin’ ya broke it off ‘cause Pops, who’s been dead fer near a decade, wouldn’t’a liked it an’ this revelation just happened ta coincide with Quill findin’ out about us?” Kraglin replies, angry Yondu is not only lying to him but also dragging his father into it. “That’s some prime bullshit right there. Why don’t chu just admit it’s ‘bout Quill? Everyone knows you’ve always been soft on ‘im.”

Snarling, Yondu leans over to cuff Kraglin on the back of the head. “What do you know ‘bout brotherhood? ‘Bout loyalty, huh? Ya sayin’ you git saddled with a kid somewhere down the line, you’d be copacetic with Quill bangin’ ‘er on the downlow?”

Probably not, but Kraglin is not about to concede the point. “If she was an adult who could make her own choices an’ was usin’ the condoms I gave ‘er, then who fuckin’ cares?”

Yondu’s laugh is harsh, humorless. “You an’ me both know ya would.”

“No. I wouldn’t,” he insists, still rubbing the spot where Yondu had struck him. “Might pop ‘im one on the nose if he broke her heart, no warnin’, though.”

Yondu grunts, turning to face forward and shifting his weight from side-to-side to settle deeper into his seat.

Kraglin is suddenly bone-tired of Yondu’s lies, of Pete’s schemes, of being angry, of this whole mess he doesn’t have the emotional tools or sobriety to even begin to process. “Look… No one’s here but you an’ me, so between the two o’ us, just this once, would it kill ya to admit it was a shit thing to do?”

“That was the arrangement. Ya knew that goin’ in,” he grumbles.

Kraglin sighs. “I’d’a thought things would’a changed, the longer we… But chu just kicked me out. Out’a nowhere, no explanation, an’ with only a few minutes peace to gather my shit an’ leave. I ain’t stupid. I _know_ it’s what we agreed on – the bare minimum – but didn’t I deserve somethin’ more’n that after…” _after all that time, after all we’ve shared._

“…Prob’ly, but that was all I had ta give,” Yondu concedes, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Never said I was any good at this shit.”

Yondu tips the quickly-dwindling bottle to nudge Kraglin’s hand draped over the arm of his copilot’s chair. The younger man accepts, lifting it to his lips to drink, hoping for oblivion.

When he drops it back into his lap, he watches the bottle as he rolls the neck between his fingers, sloshing its contents. “So, that’s it, huh?”

“Ya want it ta be?”

Kraglin shrugs, sinking low in despondence. “Since when has what I wanted ever mattered?”

Yondu studies the other man, taking in his hung head, drooped shoulders, and how much he’s concentrating on anything but Yondu himself. “…Fer what it’s worth, I’m… sorry… ‘bout how it went down. I should’a done better by you.”

Kraglin nods then tips the bottle once again to his lips. When he passes it back to Yondu, his fingers linger for a touch too long against Yondu’s knuckles. If Cap’n is apologizing, he’s obviously irredeemably drunk, possibly near black-out. He only wants to make sure Yondu doesn’t drop their only source of comfort in his compromised state, Kraglin reasons. The man probably didn’t even notice the extended contact.

“You goin’a let go or do I have ta claw it from yer mitts there?”

Kraglin releases the shared bottle immediately. “Hm? Oh yeah… just makin’ sure ya got it secure-like,” he says. “Don’t right fancy suckin’ the dregs from this ‘ere grate. When’s the last time this floor saw soap anyhow?”

“Prob’ly before it was commissioned. S’okay though. The booze’ll kill anythin’ nasty right quick. Why do ya think we keep it in stock in medbay,” Yondu replies nonchalantly.

“Thought that was to distract from the lack of anesthetics when we run low.”

“There’s that, but it’s also a good disinfectant in a pinch.”

That’s clearly unacceptable. Kraglin understands anesthetics aren’t cheap, but they can’t even keep abreast of the soap situation? “Eclector needs a new quartermaster.”

Yondu chuckles. “While we’re wishin’ fer the impossible, we could use a real field surgeon, too, but fer now, we got ourselves a tailor with first aid experience.”

“Doc ain’t a real doctor?”

“Fuck no, boy. We haven’t had a real doc with a bonafide revoked license in years. Skrits does the job just fine,” Yondu mutters. “If it ain’t broke but chu are, then ya make due.”

“Well, fuck ‘em,” Kraglin says. “Fuck the other clans an’ Ogord an’ all ‘em assholes what turned their backs on ya. We don’t need those cocksuckers no how.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Yondu toasts, tipping the bottle to his lips once again. He nearly misses, but corrects course so only a thin stream of booze dribbles down his chin.

Kraglin fixates on it, having an overwhelming urge to lick the spill from his lips.

“…What chu lookin’ at?”

“Fuckin’ dammit,” Kraglin mumbles before speaking up. “I thought if I could just talk to ya an’ git chu to admit ya did me wrong, I could have my closure an’ move on.”

“That what chu thought?” Yondu exclaims, slightly amused. “Closure don’t do nothin’, boy. Even if ya know why, it don’t lessen the sting none.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Kraglin commiserates, nervously picking at the leather of his jumpsuit cuff. “So… what are we now?”

Yondu passes him the bottle. “Cap’n an’ subordinate, I reckon.”

“Strictly professional?”

“Sounds about right.”

Kraglin considers the label, rolls it lazily across his brain but finds it wanting. “Have all yer subordinates seen ya naked?”

“Yeah, prob’ly,” Yondu replies frankly. On the Eclector, nudity is rarely sexual. “I weren’t always Cap’n, an’ plus when mine’s actin’ up, I’ve hit the communal showers a time or two.”

“That ain’t what I meant.” Kraglin means an altogether different type of nudity, one that went beyond the physical, delving into Yondu’s thoughts and memories, his secrets, things Kraglin is sure Yondu shared with very few other souls, if any.

“…Friends then,” Yondu amends.

“Alrigh’… Here’s to our friendship,” Kraglin says, indulging in a tipple before passing it back to his Cap’n, his friend.

It’s a long road back; they might as well get comfortable. So, the pair talks of other things: of Kraglin’s daddy and past misadventures and old memories of Xandar. They compare notes on various schemes and heists and how to brew the least-imperfect batch of liquor in various containers not meant for that purpose.

But they never talk about _it_ , that black twisted thing borne that day from the knowledge that Yondu felt a special regard for Peter that Kraglin would never hope to match. Because when it came down to it, despite his denials, Kraglin knew Yondu would pick Pete first – over the Eclector and her crew, over Kraglin himself, over even his own personal safety if that’s what it took. However, that is a problem for another time, another day far in the future.

Kraglin is laughing at something off-color Yondu had said when Cap’n gets a queer look in his eye.

“Fuck it,” he grumbles low, seemingly irritated, as he surges forward to clumsily capture Kraglin’s kiss.

And when they tumble down together, Yondu nipping at his bottom lip as Kraglin slips his hands under his bunched-up shirt, Kraglin reckons there’ll always be time for the hard conversations… later. But for now, there’s things that need attending to in the present, like Cap’n’s sparkling eyes, husky rumble, and flushed scarred skin stretched over firm muscles going soft towards his middle… things Kraglin missed that he’s eager to rediscover.

 

* * *

 

“So…” Kraglin says later to the ceiling, after he has dismounted Yondu to settle beside him on their shared pile of discarded leathers strewn across the cockpit floor. “Does this mean ya want’a have another go?”

Yondu scratches the lip of his pouch sewn-shut across his abdominals. “Not right now. I ain’t as young as I used to be. But give me five minutes, ten tops.”

Kraglin rolls his eyes, lifting himself up on elbows to peer over at his once-and-possibly-future lover. “That ain’t what I meant. I meant us… our thing,” he clarifies.

“Ya want it to be?”

_Yes._

“Depends,” he says instead. “Will ya talk ta me next time you lookin’ ta dip out?”

“Prob’ly… I can’t predict the future.” Yondu won’t promise anything concrete much to Kraglin’s consternation.

It doesn’t stop him from trying to extract a better answer. “Will ya at least try?”

“…All righ’.”

“Then yeah,” Kraglin says, dropping down to lie on his back.

“Okay then.” Yondu confirms, as he rolls on top to press against and tease Kraglin’s quickly-rising erection.

 

* * *

 

When Peter and Tullk dock in the Eclector five days later (a full two days after Yondu and Kraglin’s calculated date of arrival), Peter is concerned to find that the duo have yet to arrive. _They’re fine,_ Tullk had tried to reassure him. _What if they ran into trouble? How would they escape or radio for backup? They might be rotting in the Kyln right now… or worse,_ Peter had countered.

“Cap’n an’ Kraglin? Yeah, they radioed a couple days back. Said they had a lead on a job an’ would be back tomorrow,” Vorker tells them when Peter subtly inquires about their absence at the comm station.

That didn’t seem right. Tullk had assured Peter he had destroyed the radio on his way out. “They… radioed in a status,” he repeats for confirmation.

“Yeah. Cap’n explained you an’ Tullk were returnin’ ahead o’ ‘em an’ should be back soon. They ran into some trouble with their radio an’ had’a make a pit stop at some satellite on the way… Weren’t chu just with ‘em?” Vorker asks, suspicious of Peter’s apparent confusion.

“O’ course we were. See, I told ye they weren’ goin’a be long.” Tullk pats Peter on the shoulder and gives Vorker a long-suffering look. “The lad’s jus’ bein’ a nervous Nelly. He wan’ed ta go with Cap’n, but Cap’n cited Kraglin’s grea’er competence in the mission ahead.”

Vorker shakes his head in mutual understanding. Of the two, Kraglin is clearly the better choice in the vast majority of situations, especially if Cap’n didn’t fancy long self-serving monologues, listening to the same 12 songs on repeat, and getting apprehended by Nova Corps for the second time that year.

Peter sucks in a breath to calm his temper. He manages to hold in his protestations. Tullk is only trying to save their skins.

“Pete’s always been a touch slow, but what can ye do?” Tullk continues, rather unnecessarily. “We could eat ‘im, but what if it’s contagious? Like that laughin’ disease among the cannibals o’ the Guhley System?”

“I think he gets the picture, Tullk.”

 “A ship full o’ numbskulls. Can ye imagine?” Tullk elaborates, tapping his head to drive home the point.

When they walk away and turn a corner, Peter punches him on the shoulder. “What the hell was that about?”

Tullk blocks his next strike. “I didn’ wan’ ‘em to git any ideas with Cap’n away. Now, they won’ touch ye on accoun’ o’ yer infective stupidity.”

Peter crosses his arms, audibly exhaling as he steeples his fingers against his temple in frustration. “One: stupidity is not infectious, and two: even if it was, I’m NOT stupid.”

“Ye want’a say that a touch louder? I don’ think Cook heard ye o’er the sound o’ him sharpenin’ his butcherin’ knives.”

Luckily (or unluckily), they don’t have to wait long. Kraglin and Yondu return the following day, in good humor considering Tullk and Peter had essentially trapped them together with no chance of refuge away from their conflicted feelings.

Perhaps Peter is correct in his assertion that having restored his relationship with Kraglin, Yondu won’t punish them for overstepping their boundaries as subordinates and friends. However, once out of sight of the rest of the crew, Cap’n’s characteristic grin melts to a scowl as he properly greets Tullk with a hard right hook to his face. Tullk doesn’t bother to block the shot.

“Don’t chu ever make a move against me again,” he warns as the other man rises back to his wobbly feet, rubbing the quickly-bruising flesh over his left eye. It will be a right shiner come morning, but if that’s all Yondu does, Tullk figures he got off easy.

“An’ you, boy,” he grips Peter’s arms to the point of pain. Pete flinches, anticipating a blow that doesn’t come. “Pull that shit again, an’ there’ll be hell ta pay.”

To his surprise, Yondu squeezes him incrementally then lets go roughly but with no further violence to his person.

Pete elbows Tullk. “I bet you feel real foolish we spent what we thought was the last week of our lives blowing through our savings and having a lot of sex, eh Tullk?”

Yondu’s eyes widen before he leaps on Tullk, trying to pin his struggling friend as he attempts to gouge out his eyes with chipped claws. As they grapple across the ground, Peter shouts his explanations while attempting to pull the enraged man off Tullk.

 

* * *

 

Having reconciled Yondu and Tullk after his verbal faux pas, Peter sets out to repair his friendship with Kraglin. He finds him in his sleeping quarters, where he had relocated away from Peter the month prior after their falling out. He’s bent down, reaching under his cot for his footlocker. Peter supposes he’s collecting some personal affects to leave in Cap’n’s quarters for convenience and subtle territorialism.

Kraglin turns at the sound of his footfalls echoing across the metal floor. However upon recognizing the intruder, he pivots back to face the contents of his trunk.

Pete sits on the far corner of his cot and faces forward, perpendicular to Kraglin. “So… you an’ Cap’n… You worked things out? It’s all fixed now?”

“Wouldn’t’a needed fixin’ if ya hadn’t broke it,” Kraglin replies harshly, collecting a spare pair of underwear and slipping it into the fold of a poncho at his the side.

Pete sighs, scooting closer to Kraglin until he settles just outside his peripheral vision. “Look man, I’m sorry. I’m _really_ sorry. I shouldn’t have butt in. It’s just… I”ve never had a dad, and Yondu, well… Yondu is the closest thing I’ve ever had to one. And then to see you and him together… I don’t know. It felt weird. Weird and gross.”

Kraglin rises from his seat on the floor to tower over Peter, quiet rage seeping into his purposely neutral expression.

“But if it makes you happy…” Peter trails off rather lamely. It’s clear to Kraglin that the youth still struggles with the concept of his relationship with Yondu, but he’s still too angry to care.

“That’s real big of you, Pete, bein’ able to stomach somethin’ that don’t involve you at all,” he says sarcastically, crossing his arms. “Good to know my sex life finally meets with yer approval.”

Peter stands as well, stumbling headlong into an explanation before Kraglin loses what little patience he has for this conversation. “I’m sorry; I’m really trying here. I guess I just don’t understand your attraction to that blue asshole, who is old enough to be our father, in case you couldn’t do the math.”

He rethinks his approach at Kraglin’s unimpressed glare. He’s supposed to be apologizing, and it’s already going off the rails. “So yeah, I don’t understand it, but you know what? I don’t have to. It’s none of my business. Whatever you have with him… that’s between the two of you, and if it makes you happy and him slightly less whistle-y, then who am I to stand in the way? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I support you and your depraved love.”

“Um… thanks, Pete. I think.” Kraglin would really appreciate it if Peter stopped emphasizing how much his choice of sexual partner disturbed him, even if he could see Peter’s point, just a little.

“And when he breaks your heart, I’ll be here to wingman you through a series of mutually-beneficial, age-appropriate rebounds.”

_Hell no._

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Kraglin states, his annoyance growing with every word uttered by his clueless friend.

“I’m just throwing it out there so you know I got your back when the time comes.” Pete says fervently, eyes large and sincere as he latches onto Kraglin’s upper arms. “I got you, bro.”

Kraglin sighs heavily. It appears Peter’s obnoxious support will be just as offensive as his initial protests.

He continues, “And if you ever want to talk–”

“Yeah, ‘bout that. Got any pointers for how ta git yer ol’ man ta make those cute clicks when I’m goin’ down on ‘im? I just love it when he comes apart like that, but so far, it only happens with my cock jammed up his ass.” Kraglin smiles maliciously.

“… you can always search for answers on the intergalactic web. I hear it’s very informative,” Peter finishes, quickly withdrawing all contact from the other man. He turns pale, like he’s going to be ill.

Unperturbed, Kraglin strokes his chin in thought as he continues conversationally, “Maybe I should try stickin’ a couple fingers up there when I’m suckin’ him off.”

“…Dick.”

“I wish, Pete, but I’m only so flexible. I stretch beforehand, but there are limits. Good thinkin’ though,” Kraglin deadpans, but Peter thinks he sees a twinkle of sadistic mirth in his flat gaze.

“Stars damn it, Kraglin! I get it. I don’t want to know.”

Ignoring his friend’s declaration, Kraglin latches hands firmly on Peter’s shoulders, stares him straight in his green eyes wet with frustration and disgust, and says in mock earnestness. “Now Petey, jus’ ‘cause I’m fuckin’ yer dad don’t make me yer stepdad so ya don’t have ta call me daddy or nothin’. That would just be weird. ‘Cause that’s what yer pops calls me. In bed. Frequently an’ at increasingly high volume.”

Kraglin ruffles Pete’s hair as if the youth is not only five years his junior. “It’s a sex thing.”

“Fuck you, Kraglin.”

“That’s yer dad’s job.”

“He’s not my father.”

Peter inadvertently opened himself up to a whole new slew of dad jokes. Kraglin is not above exploiting that.

He can’t wait.

 

* * *

 

Kraglin watches his feet as he steps off the M-ship, touching down on concrete in one of the remaining extant slums located near the city center of Xandar’s capitol. He taps his boot against the ground, breathing in the stink of urine and stale gutter water underlying the plume of fuel exhaust mixed with cig smoke, savoring the urban stench of his childhood playground where he had spent hours while his mother worked the family sweet stand. It wafts over him, tickling the corners of his olfactory memory, harkening back to earlier days, simpler times.

For the first time in eleven years, he’s home.

“What the hell is that?” Peter complains, covering his nose with the palm of one hand.

“You’ve smelled worse when Cook’s whippin’ up a batch o’ surprise stew,” Yondu retorts, cuffing him lightly on the back of the head. He doesn’t approve of the boy trying to enforce impossible standards of air quality and hygiene. It’s putting on airs, as if Quill was raised with a silver spoon up his ass, and he refuses to tolerate it.

Yondu turns to address the other member of their party. “Kraglin, ya know yer way around here?”

Just this once, alone with only Peter as witness, he lets Kraglin lead.

Though the scents are familiar, that’s the only thing Kraglin can remember well. He gets them lost in the maze of streets, unable to recall the twists and turns of his old stomping grounds, and when he recognizes and follows a road leading back to his former house, it terminates in vaulted, high-rise properties built along preplanned boxed blocks. It’s a far cry from his memory of winding alleys cutting between huts made of stone and bric-a-brac.

He shouldn’t have come back.

“What are we doing here?” Peter asks. The street is residential, upper-class, and likely full of valuables that will fetch a fine price on the black market. “Which one’s the target?”

“None o’ ‘em,” Kraglin replies, surveying the unfamiliar landscape. With the way the streets practically gleam white with not so much as a stain of indeterminate origin nor a scrap of refuse, he thinks the city may even spring for daily street sweeping in this area. “I used’a live ‘ere.”

“You used to live _here_?” Peter repeats, incredulous. He tries, and fails, to reconcile the reality of a scruffy Kraglin with his likely childhood in such a posh neighborhood. “Why the hell did you join the Ravagers, Richie Rich?”

“It weren’t near so upscale back then. This whole area used’a be what chu would call ‘affordable housing.’ They tore down my ol’ home to build… this.”

 “Oh…” Peter says, following the clean curving lines and wide arches with new eyes. He turns away to rifle through his satchel, producing a spray paint can. “Want to decorate? C’mon… you, me, and petty vandalism makes three.”

“Naw, you go on ahead. I’m jus’ goin’a hang back a bit.”

Peter shakes the can. “Suit yourself,” he says, before running ahead to tag some prime real estate, leaving the duo behind.

Yondu startles Kraglin from his nostalgic reverie. “Rue used ta disappear every time we got within a day’s reach o’ Xandar. Always came ‘ere ta visit you an’ yer ma when he had’a chance.”

“Ya didn’t fly by Xandar too often then?” Kraglin observes all-too-casually.

“It’s a big universe, an’ we don’t retread all that much, but we were here-abouts every fews months or so. He would always be up fer any job in the near vicinity,” Yondu explains, scratching his nose with a chipped claw. “Missed out on some big payouts an’ many a shore leave with the boys by comin’ here.”

“Missed out on a lot here by staying away, too.”

“Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, bein’ a Ravager an’ a daddy… like livin’ two lives. I reckon it’s tough enough doin’ either with any competence, much less at the same time, but ya make do however ya can… An’ sometimes, ya hafta make compromises, but so long as the kid turns out okay…” he shrugs.

Kraglin suspects they aren’t just talking about his father.

Yondu continues, “Yer daddy… he was mighty proud o’ ya.”

Kraglin is quiet for a bit as he shoves his hands in his pockets and stares too hard at his boots. “…You should tell Pete yer proud of ‘im, too,” he mumbles.

He can see Yondu consider it. He really should… soon, before it’s too late. Kraglin knows he won’t do it now, of course, not in his presence. But perhaps when the two of them are alone, and Yondu has had ten or twelve celebratory drinks sloshing around within his gut after a good score. Yes, that would be the perfect time.

They both look over at Peter, who is currently painting a giant blue dick across a white wall. Standing tall, the mushroom head sports a short dorsal fin with a small arrow spurting out the top.

Frowning, Yondu growls, “Maybe I would if I was.”

Peter is adding the finishing touches when he is spotted by two neighborhood patrolmen.

“Mighty nice picture you made there,” one of them says from behind his back.

“Thanks, I–“ Peter turns to address the admirer of his latest masterpiece, only to find the blue uniform and rumpled brow of the newly-minted Nova Corpsman Rhomann Dey. “–Just found it like this, Officer. I wonder who would possibly do such a thing in broad daylight on such a public space. It’s disgusting really. I mean… kids might see this probably.”

They are clearly not buying his story. Peter tries to run, but he’s boxed in by Dey’s partner, who places the struggling teen under arrest while Dey surveys the damage, touching the still-wet spray paint. His fingers come away blue as he faces the obvious culprit.

To Dey’s eyes, Peter looks to be no more than a kid, a punk kid maybe, but a child nonetheless and definitely not a threat. He sighs. “What’s your name, son?”

“Star-Lord.”

“No, your real name.”

“That is my real name,” Peter insists, “My outlaw name.”

“All right Star-Prince. We’re going to have to take you downtown. You’re looking at a misdemeanor and a fine at the very least.”

“It’s Star-Lord,” Peter complains as he’s shuffled into the back of a Nova cruiser.

Watching the exchange from a distance, Kraglin suppresses a chuckle. “So, ya want’a maybe bust ‘im out?”

Yondu is still staring at Peter’s unflattering graffiti, his mouth forming a thin hard line. He subtly puffs out his upper lip in irritated contemplation. “Naw, let ‘im rot fer a spell. How ‘bout me an’ you git a drink in the mean time? Let Nova babysit the brat.”

“You sure ‘bout that, Cap’n?”

“The boy should learn actions have consequences,” Yondu drawls, already pulling Kraglin along in the other direction. “’Sides, ya haven’t been back since you was a small brat. I know a place where the proprietors are discreet, an’ the liquor’s as strong as the corners are dark,” he adds suggestively. “You in?”

Kraglin smiles, his step alongside Yondu becoming more sure.

“Yes sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, Kudo-ed, or commented on this fic. You guys are fantastic! You help me keep on trucking along writing and posting for this fandom :). So, if you enjoyed it, please drop me a comment to let me know.


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